Avengers: Endgame (2019)
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Avengers: Endgame Movie Review
Avengers: Endgame is a 2019 superhero film directed by Anthony and Joe Russo and starring Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. among others. It’s a solid, but overrated movie.
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“You could not live with your own failure,
and where did that bring you?
Back to me“
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I am one of the rare people out there who simply weren’t in love with ‘Infinity War’ as did so many fans and critics. And I pretty much hold similar opinion of this film too as I do with every other Avengers flick. I continue to appreciate more the single instead of team movies as these team movies are not only far from my cup of tea, but also inherently flawed in so many areas.
In terms of storytelling, I’ve had a few major problems with this film and I simply could not forgive them for those major flaws. One of them is its obviousness. Almost the whole of this film is pretty predictable and I, and so many fans out there, have predicted many of its plot points.
And that brings me to this whole time travel nonsense. And that’s basically what that is – very stupid. On the surface, it’s not that bad, but when you get to the details, it becomes very silly and downright incomprehensible and confusing to the point that I really did not understand how they got all of the Infinity Stones. And what’s even worse is the fact that they somewhat made fun of ‘Back to the Future’ while in the end basically “honoring” it by ripping it off. That total indecisiveness really got on my nerves.
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Let’s analyze the characters one by one. I personally thought that they just decided on a whim whom to kill off and whom to give a proper ending and although I liked that they really did kill two major characters, still the death count is way too low for this type of dangerous situation.
This is literally Tony Stark’s movie so of course he was going to die and that death scene and the funeral were really touching, but the set-up for it felt obvious and not as emotionally earned as the movie thought it was with the daughter being particularly underdeveloped. I did, though, love the emphasis on his personality and his ultimate sacrifice and strong morality.
As for Cap, he literally got the happiest ending of them all. It was quite basically wish fulfillment that felt overdone, but still him living his life to the fullest and getting to be with the love of his life and growing old were all powerful moments that were quite emotional overall. This character’s journey was quite deep in the end.
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Hulk is again overly comedic and underutilized which was annoying whereas most of the stuff they did with Hawkeye, especially the Japanese part, were simply not good decisions, but his relationship with Black Widow was powerful which led to that stupendous scene where she sacrificed herself. I really liked her character here, Scarlett’s performance is great and that sequence is so memorable.
Thor absolutely stole the show in the comedy department and was pretty much the saving grace when it comes to this film’s humor which was very rare. He’s hilarious as the white trash, depressed and homeless-looking past superhero and all of his jokes really landed, both the physical stuff and the dialogue. And he really belongs with the Guardians so him joining them was an inspired choice.
Speaking of the group, none of them really got their moment to shine here with the exception of Gamora who had some fine moments and of course Nebula is so great and one of this film’s best developed heroes. Scott Lang was ridiculed a bit too much for my liking whereas most of the new heroes were shortchanged in favor of the original Avengers which worked as the theme here was passing down the torch to the new team.
But Captain Marvel was so wasted here that it annoyed the hell out of me. Her movie promised at least some meaty scene or two in here, but we got none of that as she wasn’t powerful enough to fight Thanos and basically embarrassed herself against him. She was not needed at all. Speaking of Thanos, I continue to just love this villain. He’s again the MVP of the film as he once again outwitted them gloriously and was so intimidating. His monologues are wonderfully cartoony too.
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Avengers: Endgame has pretty good visual effects for the most part and I also really liked its dialogue and themes too. It’s particularly sophisticated for this type of movie in some scenes and downright inspired and emotional in some parts too. I also find the humor solid when it was there and the movie has a lot of heart overall.
But the pacing is so troublesome. I really did not like it. The movie overall was sloppy in direction, structure and filmmaking, but the pacing is so bad that the first hour of the film is very slow, albeit admirably realistic and dark, whereas the second act is rushed and confusing and only the third act flowed well and contained the best moments, both happy and sad.
I also appreciated the fan service which was overwhelming, but earned as twenty one movies preceded it and they definitely earned that level of strong character moments and emotional storytelling. I also liked some of those time travel moments as they were an endearing homage to the past movies, but confusing they surely were. Overall, the movie is solid, but certainly far from the great words bestowed upon it by the fans and the critics.
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Avengers: Endgame is another solid, but highly overrated Avengers movie that is in terms of filmmaking, direction and especially pacing very problematic and downright sloppy. The first hour of the movie is admirably dark and depressing, but simply too slow and long, whereas the second act is very confusing and simply weakly written in its nonsensical time travel elements. Where the movie shines is in its last act with the conclusion of the old characters’ journeys being earned emotionally as both the happy and the tragic endings made a strong emotional impact. Captain Marvel herself was pretty much wasted here as were most of the newer characters, but the standouts are Black Widow, Cap, Tony and once again Thanos who’s the MVP how powerful and clever a villain he truly is.
