This review is going to feel good. Buried deep beneath the unsettling politics of a company that has monopolized an industry, a weaponized marketing campaign of “spoiler culture” that is leading to real injury and an unstoppable hype train of global proportion, is an actual movie that was made by people.
A fact that is certainly lost amidst all the drama of not spoiling the movie is the emotional connection to the characters.
Everyone is talking about how they felt about the story beats, the characters and the memes about crying. It’s all in good fun, but at the end of the day, does the movie stand on its own as a piece of art?
The simple answer is no. The more complex answer is still a resounding no but the movie isn’t trying to be. Avengers: Endgame is a gigantic, fan-service filled, action-packed giant pile of explosions and nonsense, and that’s okay.
What Endgame lacks in any particular substance, it more than makes up for it with its high octane action, emotional highs from characters you likely grew up with, and wall-to-wall references to other movies.
A twist in the prologue of the film, as well as the one leading into the climatic third-act battle, makes Endgame an edge of your seat, exciting thriller.
All of this is true for the Marvel fanboy die-hard, if you’re a new person to the franchise, or just in general don’t care for the Marvel movies, Endgame has little in the ways of introducing the characters or story to newcomers.
Be that as it may, the twist is still engaging and takes the movie in a direction I wasn’t expecting throughout the beginning.
Watching the characters have to cope with what happened rather than immediately finding a solution was a great idea. My only complaint was that I wish it went on longer.
Not much outside of the filmmaking stands out, this movie is filmed in the same blandly competent way all of the MCU films are, other than a handful of cuts in the ending that felt oddly out of place, the movie was clearly very expensive and well put together.
It lacked the dynamic camera angles that Black Panther had, or any of the color and personality of Thor: Ragnorok, and it definitely had none of the grunge of Guardians of the Galaxy or the enduring heart of Spider-Man: Homecoming, but once again, it was competent and sharp.
Performances ranged from good to excellent, reminding us that what brings us back is the characters, and Endgame is full of them.
Robert Downey Jr. in particular brings it to a whole new level with an Iron Man at his wit’s end ready to give up. Everyone else was hardly a slouch either with even Paul Rudd emoting more than I think he ever has.
Danai Guira is always a delight as Okoye and I loved her even if her screen time is minimal, and Tom Holland rushing into battle is as adorable as it was dorky.
The only person who didn’t have a particularly good performance, and I hate saying this, was Brie Larson as Captain Marvel.
It is just not working. Her character is still pretty dry when you have her next to even the other more serious characters.
The aforementioned Okoye is a no-nonsense serious character and she still brings more to the table in nuance of acting than Larson.
Despite a big marketing push lately for female empowerment, most, if not all the major female characters of the MCU, were not in this movie.
Other than Black Widow, all the other beloved female characters are either written to not be in the majority of the film, or got snapped in the previous film.
The movie was very funny, at least. Watching new characters interacting was fun, all except for an overlong joke with Thor that ran its course almost immediately. It was in poor taste, cheap and worthy of a singular giggle at best.
Avengers: Endgame brings nothing new to the table and suffers from the same problems that most of them do, fun action undermined by half-baked, underdeveloped themes and blatant face-value marketing decisions for social issues and representation.
All of this is true, but I would be lying if I said the film didn’t have me shedding a tear at points, and to say that I had fun watching it is an understatement.
Even if it was just for a second, I became that kid that watched the first Captain America movie and just loved superheroes.
The movie is flawed to no end, bathed in awful implications inside and out of the business and social issues, the movie is a product of many problems that plague the foundation of art as we know it, something that we should be paying more attention to.
However, there is no harm in taking a few steps back, watching your favorite superheroes get one last hurrah.
