Avengers: Endgame - Review

Avengers: Infinity War was not a perfect movie. It was brave but bloated superhero epic with a killer send off and proof that Marvel can do villains correctly when they place them as the protagonist. Endgame is not as good byquite a stretch. It is good, but it never hits the highs of Infinity War, due to an overreliance on schmaltz and fan service, a meandering plot that makes very little sense, and a predictable CGI battle royale finale. However, hidden amongst the predictability there are again brave story beats and a fair bit more introspection than you'd expect in a MCU. If you are hardcore Marvel fan this may be all you want out of Endgame but for me, it fell short.

There, that's my quick spoiler free review, but to really get into why I don't think it matches up to Infinity War I am going to have go deep into spoiler territory. So stick with this review if you've seen the film or care not for the spoilers.

Endgame picks up within the near aftermath of Thanos' victory lap at the end of Infinity War, having wiped out half of the world's population. Our heroes are either scattered to the winds as ash being wiped out from existence by Thanos, stranded in space (Iron Man and Nebulla) or rallying the remains of humanity on Earth (Black Widow, Captain America...).

Strangely enough, the pickle that Iron Man and Nebulla finds themselves in is quickly overcome by deus-ex Captain Marvel who sweeps by to carry their ship back to Earth. Yes, this is in character for Captain Marvel to be able to do this but it comes across as the equivalent of Doctor Who's ever fixing  sonicscrewdriver, and it will not be the first time that she gets used as little more than a plot device to get the heroes out of tough spots.

The film then performs its bravest gambit by having the heroes track down Thanos in the opening 30 minutes and kill him. Having now destroyed the stones, to prevent his work from being undone, Thanos  mournfully mocks their futility. In a rage at his previous failings to kill him, Thor decapitates Thanos and with that one move he opens up the film to wonderful and unknown possibilities, of which the movie later squanders. Thanos' death feels brave, and the logic behind him not caring whether he lives or dies now is on point - he achieved everything he set out to do, he isn't a villain doing things simply to gloat - he can die knowing he obtained his "balance."



The freedom of losing Thanos is the film's biggest success and weakness. The strength is the promise of trying something new, as without having an omnipotent villain hounding our heroes they are instead left fighting a more existential battle, namely to bring back what was taken from them. However, without a lead villain it also robs the film, for a significant part of it anyway, any sense or urgency or propulsion. Yes, the time travel plan to go back in time is urgent in and of itself, but the overly generous running time of 3 hours simply allows the writers to meander through the MCU's greatest hits, in remixes of scenes we have seen before. The excuse "this film has been 22 films in the making" doesn't cut it - tacking on some McGuffins to your films to be used as an uber McGuffin at the end is not telling one story over 22 films, and considering how some of the heroes in those 22 films get sidelined in this film, it is clear that this is no culmination of a 22 film story. It is the culmination of one story, started in Infinity War and heavily hinted at time and time again for a few minutes at most several of the previous films.

Returning to the big scenes from Marvel's past allows for a lot of cool winks at the audiences, but that's what this film seems to mainly be, a big fan service event. Most of the main characters get to have some big emotional moment, but some come across as trite and predictable, Captain America's reunion with his long lost love in particular. Scenes do not zip along with any sense of urgency, instead they are bloated by joke after joke, or come to a crawl with another exposition dump regarding the rules of time travel, the worst offender being a discussion between Hulk and Tilda Swinton's Supreme Being regarding rules on bringing the stones back.

Furthermore, by focusing the plot around time travel, the film falls into the all too easy trap of creating plot holes bigger than Doctor Strange's portals bringing the team back near the end of the film. The excuse of "don't think about it too hard" simply won't cut it - the film cheekily has two characters rattle of the key rules of time travel in a deliberately complicated rush of jargon, just to land a joke at the expense of understanding. Without a proper grasp of what is at stake and what you can and cannot do with time travel the stakes of going back in time are muddled. On a side note, if anyone can explain how Loki escaping with the teseract is an acceptable thing, please do so, as the movie nor characters seem to care a whole lot. Well done, you stopped Thanos from wiping out half of humanity, but now there's a world where Loki is running around with a teseract.

It also takes at tremendously long time to get the actual plot machinations moving, with the bulk of the first part of the film made up of vignettes of our heroes and how they are coping with the aftermath of Thanos' actions. This isn't in and of itself a bad thing, where Thor is now emotionally and physically is a highlight, mixing comedy and tragedy to perfection, but when your film is 3 hours long, it just feels self-indulgent and box ticking to make sure the fans see their heroes get their moment in the sun, narrative thrust be damned. In trying to make sure each hero gets a moment to shine, those that get slightly less time feel even more pointless. Try all you want to make Hawkeye a badass with a wonderful reintroduction by way of emo-ninja one shot fight scene - if you then have him do very little for the rest of the film, the buildup feels pointless.

In digging into Marvel's back catalogue we do get fun remixes of past encounters, the highlight being a Captain America vs Captain America brawl, and what is supposed to be an emotional high point of Thor meeting his mother on the day of her death, now with the knowledge of his failings and her death. However, as with many Marvel movies, moments of tension and emotional weight are undercut for comedy, Thor in particular falls afoul to this, simply due to the fact that Thor is a blobbed out drunk "Lebowski" as Stark wonderfully zings. Thankfully, in the opening act the zingers are kept to a minimum, and Black Widow's breakdown at her desk is a wonderfully understated piece of acting in a bombastic superhero epic. 

A particular issue plaguing Black Widow's journey is that her and Hawkeye's journey to retrieve the Soul Stone simply replays the scene from the previous film, just with different characters. Yes, you can draw parallels between the motivations and actions of their journey when compared to how Thanos achieved the same goal, but again this movie is 3 hours long. It just adds bloat for the sake of giving each hero a job to do.

When Thanos finally steps back into the movie, with some nifty plotting using the mechanical nature of Nebulla, the film steps up the pacing as finally there is an opposing threat, albeit one that our heroes do not know is onto them yet. Brolin's time in the sun is much much shorter than in Infinity War, and that is perhaps predictable as Endgame's purpose is to end the heroes stories, rather than his. However, if you thought this film would be a bloodbath for Thanos, you'd be sorely mistaken as the only causalities in the film are Black Widow and Iron Man, and both are casualties through their own heroism, rather than his power. Now, that's not in and of itself a bad thing, and I don't think upping the body count would've improved the film, but it does somewhat neuter Thanos' power when he goes toe to toe with our heroes at the climax and can't seem to claim one scalp.

The finale starts with fire and brimstone raining down on our heroes, and a stellar 4 way brawl of Thanos against Iron Man, Captain American and Thor. This is the action highlight of the film, with the filmmakers cashing in on the aura of menace and threat that they have given Thanos. It feels like any of the three heroes could bite the dust, and whilst to me it felt like a wasted opportunity for the filmmakers to go bold and dark with a death here, the fight still zings with clarity but appropriate dramatic weight.

Any sense of tension and drama is more or less drained from the film, however, when those who had by snapped away come back for the true big fight to finish off the film. An army of heroes fights an army of bland CGI monsters. We've seen this sort of thing countless times before, and all this battle has going for it is that it panders to the fans, giving each hero a 5 second window to do a cool hero power type thing. The directors zip from hero to hero doing their thing in battle which removes any sense of tension or drama and instead just make the battle an excuse for cool screen captures to use as desktop wallpaper, displaying your favourite hero in full flow. With so many heroes on screen it is impossible to care for any of them as each one barely makes an impact and no duel in the clash of armies is given more than a few seconds of focus.

Thanos gets a suitably dramatic send off, and a final killer line is said by the true first cinematic Avenger, Iron Man. Whilst I've never been a huge fan of RDJ's Iron Man, he is undeniably charismatic, and has many of the film's best lines, and so it is fitting that he is the beating metal heart, and it is his death which is gives the film it emotive send off. Yes, his funeral and cavalcade of mourners is a bit naff, but his holographic message to his wife and child rings true. It cannot be said that any of the actors involved in these movies ever gave less than 100%, and it is clear that they will leave an eternal impression on the majority of moviegoers (probably in the same way that Michael Keaton's Batman did for me as an impressionable toddler, who really should not have been watching those films).

It sounds like I have been mostly negative regarding Endgame but let it be clear, Endgame is by no means a bad film. Most blockbusters come across as simple minded cash grabs, interested in entertaining with explosions rather than hearts and minds. The Marvel films have never come across as lazy, indeed Engame is quite happy to spend time languishing with characters in the aftermath of tragedy, and whilst I found Endgame's fan service too much, that isn't lazy, that's showing a passion for the characters and an understanding of being able to frame their essence in a single shot of film. Endgame is epic in length and scope, not so much in grasp. It tries to please all but in doing so loses the focus that would've helped sharpen up this picture. Ironically, in sidelining Thanos, the film loses the balance that would've truly made this the victory lap it intended to be.