Avengers: Endgame review

 Spoilers - Will attempt to avoid them but describing the movie comes with some risk. Let the reader beware.
 
    AVENGERS: ENDGAME is the culmination of eleven years of storytelling. Starting with the introduction of the Tesseract, the movies have continually laid the foundation for the Infinity Gems to be found in order to do an adaptation of the Infinity Gauntlet miniseries that I read when it first came out in 1991 at age 11. Honestly, I was always kind of perplexed by this because The Infinity Gauntlet series wasn't that great. It was basically Thanos getting the "I win" button to impress Death and then wiping out half the universe before beating up the Avengers. It was the Secret Wars with the Beyonder/Doctor Doom combo replaced with Thanos and Nebula.

The losses are keenly felt by everyone.

    I was actually impressed with the depiction of Thanos in the previous movie, Avengers: Infinity War, because I liked his motivational change. While his reasoning was absolutely insane, you understood it was coming from a place of well-intentioned extremism. Quite a few scientists were even upset with the movie because it forwarded the long-discredited "Carrying Capacity" theory that both Thanos and Ra's Al Ghul are the only kind of people to champion who aren't a bunch of psychotic racists.

    This movie does away with Thanos' more sympathetic sides and I regret that because I think it would have been more interesting to defeat him by convincing him that his actions were wrong. To have Thanos sacrifice himself in order to undo what he'd done in a snap. Instead, this is a movie that is solved by copious amounts of punching, breaking the rules of reality, and continuity porn to the other MCU movies. We all knew that was going to happen when 1/2 of the world was slain at the end of Infinity War (as well as the fact Peter Parker had a new movie coming out).

The only thing missing was Thor hooking up with Kat Dennings.

    Honestly, I think the handling of the aftermath of Infinity War was surprisingly good. The characters are all hit with how they not only failed but they failed royally. Steve, Thor, Tony, Clint, and everyone else have little character arcs that elevate the material. I think Clint's is the most interesting even if a bit stereotypical and Punisher-esque. It's actually fairly accurate to the Ultimate version of Hawkeye/Bullseye, though.

    I'm not going to spoil the ending of the movie but I will say there are casualties and not everyone makes it out of this film. Some of these feel dramatic and authentic while others feel a bit like the death of Han Solo. In other words, they feel like they were done because the actors were ready to move on to other projects than because they wanted to tell the most dramatic story possible. Even so, I will say that two of them really moved me while another actually ticked me off. You'll know what ones I mean.

Good but not enough of her.

    The things you expect from an Avengers movie like action, comedy, and amazing special effects are all there. There's a few comedy bits that are hit and miss. For example, Thor's reaction to the events of Infinity War are very similar to what happened to a lot of veterans coming home from horrible situations. However, it's played for comedy and doesn't really do well. I also regret that we didn't get his supporting cast to provide any sort of closure to him as the majority of them were apparently dusted.

    Captain Marvel is underused to my surprise. She basically has only a small but important part to play in the movie with not much character development. Everyone else is carrying the lion's share of the work but having Carol deal with the fact she was off helping Skrulls when she could have been the difference between genocide or victory on her home planet seems like it could have been a missed emotional opportunity.

Ya done messed it up, Tony.

   The Hulk and Black Widow relationship actually has some genuine pathos as well as chemistry for the first time. I felt it was a bad mistake to begin with but they actually managed to carry it through Thor: Ragnarok and Infinity War to something that actually works. I'm not really fond of the treatment of the Hulk here, you'll have to see for yourself why, but I don't think this storyline will last very long. There won't be a Hulk movie but there will be a Hulk TV series with the long-awaited appearance of She-Hulk. We'll just have to wait and see on that end.

    I'm going to miss quite a few of the characters who fell and while I think a number of them will be coming back, I do think that if they stayed dead or retired then this would have been a good final story for them. It was the WW3 of the setting and the deus ex machina at the end wasn't completely successful. Indeed, I think they will probably have to ignore elements of it because it's just plain too changing of the setting. It's like when Kang took over the United States in the comics. No one acknowledged that happening across the titles and they forgot about it soon after. Otherwise, it wouldn't resemble our world anymore.

Surprisingly good acting from a primarily comedic actor.

    So, how was it as an ending for the MCU? Well, it's not an ending for the MCU but it is an ending for a large part of it. Really, it feels like a proper Marvel crossover ala Civil War or the Secret Invasion with everyone getting their moment to shine but it's not something I completely bought into either. It feels like a "What if" or an alternate universe but as the Injustice games show, that's not always a bad thing.

    I think most of the character arcs ended where they probably should have but a few were outright wrong (Black Widow and Gamora, I'm looking at you). Not everyone died or retired but everyone got a story that had a conclusion. So, if it didn't make a perfect landing then at least it didn't fall either. There's also a lot of really poignant moments that reach the proper height of Marvel melodrama. Moments like Aunt May dying or the marriage of Mary Jane Watson to Peter Parker. The good stuff.

9/10