Avengers: Endgame - A flawed but satisfying end of an era

well this is a video i didn't plan on making for a while but when your friend calls you on opening night telling you there's a ticket for end game go and spare what can you do i can't think of any movie in recent memory that's had such enormous expectations hype fears concerns conspiracies and conjectures heaped on it as end game hell even i'm guilty of it i've made no secret of the fact that i consider infinity war the best movie in the mcu and that it pretty much revived the series that was growing stale and predictable but in-game was another level altogether whereas infinity war was a brilliant penultimate stepping stone on the journey end game was always the final destination it's the culmination of everything that's been building up for the past 10 years all the work all the adventures all the world building and the storytelling and the hype and the endless speculation and debate all of it would come down to one simple question is end game worth it well yeah it is mostly endgame is a movie that left me feeling kind of confused when i left the cinema but not for the reasons you might think normally i formed my opinions of a movie pretty quickly but endgame left me struggling to settle on a final consensus partly because there's so much to it it's hard to take it all in in one go and partly because it's difficult to untangle it from all the hype and the comparisons to what came before and it's only as i did this review and really sorted through the events of this film that i was able to understand what worked and what didn't before i deliver my verdict i'm gonna do my best to summarize the plot and the events of this film so i can put my remarks into some kind of context which is no easy task when the movie itself is longer than the amount of sleep i've had in the past 48 hours but what the hell we all have to suffer for our art i suppose if you're not into spoilers then skip to this time code from my overall summary and my thoughts on the film otherwise let's dive in and discuss what happens so end game picks up a few weeks after the battle with thanos at the end of infinity war tony's trapped aboard star-lord ship with nebula in deep space they've exhausted their supplies and run out of options and there's nothing left to do now except wait for the end to come tony's on the verge of death when all of a sudden captain marvel magically finds him and brings him back to earth to reunite with the avengers oh this isn't looking good so they all want payback for what thanos did and they need the infinity gauntlet so they can bring back all the people that he zapped and as it happens nebula knows where they can find him because he told her all about it when she was growing up not too smart really thanos so they all head to fantasy's retirement planet and the ambush him and thor kills him by slicing his head off nice work guys the beers are on me tonight wait what what do you mean there's more oh for [ __ ] but it turns out that killing thanos in the present doesn't help much because he destroyed the infinity stones to stop anyone else undoing his previous actions they might have beaten their enemy but they've still failed in their mission so the avengers go home defeated flash forward five years and everything's a bit [ __ ] now rather than thriving as thanos predicted earth is really struggling with the loss of half its population everyone's depressed and whole areas of cities are crumbling and deserted wastelands it's a bit like detroit then what's left of the avengers are trying to hold things together and black widow's overseeing it all because really she's got nowhere else left to go tony and thor are both gone and hawkeye's become a crazed vigilante after losing his whole family to the snap captain marvel also leaves because there's lots of planets that need her help more than earth so she'll be gone for most of the movie nice one russo brothers but then ant-man suddenly returns from the quantum realm he's been trapped there for the past five years but from his point of view it's just been a few hours because time's all messed up there i guess so he suggests using this technology to go back in time and stop thanos before he was able to kill everyone the avengers ask for tony's help but he's retired with a wife and kid and he's not willing to risk it all in a long shot like this but then he changes his mind and they build the fully functional time machine in like two days and then they're ready to go they also rope in thor who's now a miserable drunkard living in the middle of nowhere playing video games all day now obviously i take a dim view of that kind of thing so i was pretty mad to see him acting like this they also recruit bruce banner who's kind of permanently fused with the hulk so he retains his hulk's strength and banner's intelligence it's like the best of both worlds he explains that they can't stop thanos from using the gauntlet in the past or just kill him before he got the stones because it's a different timeline so changes to that one won't affect theirs so even if you killed a past version of yourself for example it wouldn't cause you to stop existing because your timeline's unchanged oh mauler's going to have a field day with this one so the plan is to find the six infinity stones before thanos gets them in the past put them in a new gauntlet and use it to restore everyone in the present then return the stones to their original place in time so everything can go back to normal confused good me too the team splits up to go to the various times and places tony banner ant-man and cap go after three of the stones on earth during the battle of new york thor and rocket go after another stone on asgard during thor ii nebula and roadie go for the one on morag that star-lord discovered and black widow and hawkeye go for the soul stone this is where things start to go a bit wrong because you have to sacrifice something you love to get the soul stone hawkeye and black widow fight over who should be the one to die and what i have to admit is one of the absolute highlights of the movie for me it's a scene that's tense dramatic unpredictable and heartbreaking as each character tries to sacrifice themselves but the other uses increasingly desperate ways to stop them eventually black widow succeeds though and hawkeye returns with the soul stone devastated by her death well not sure how that black widow movie's going to play out now the new york team also get two of their stones even if it does involve cat pretending to be a hydra agent and fighting well himself but they lose the tesseract in the chaos so they have to travel back further to the 1970s to get it when it was being stored in some military camp when shield was just starting up jesus how many times has that [ __ ] thing appeared in these movies anyway tony has a scene with his 1970s dad and cap spots peggy carter who somehow looks exactly like she did in captain america even though she's a quarter of a century older ah whatever but all is not well rudy and nebula managed to get their stone but because there's now two nebulas in the same time period their brains link up somehow and past nebula start seeing present nebula's conversations this allows past thanos to scan her memories and uncover the avengers entire plan he knows he's going to succeed at using the infinity stones in the future and he knows they're now here trying to stop him wow that was lucky for him i mean the whole rest of the movie basically relies on nebula going haywire just when she happens to be around thanos and this random link up just happens to play out a really vital incriminating snippet of conversation that totally clues him into what's happening what are the odds eh like if this had happened while thanos was somewhere else or if it just played a visual with nebula like walking down a hallway or watching tv or taking a dump he'd have been totally none the wiser that any of this stuff was going on ah whatever since he realizes the avengers are now basically doing his job for him by collecting all the infinity stones thanos captures present nebula and he follows them back to earth through the time portal thingy so the avengers reunite at their headquarters in the present they put the stones in a new gauntlet and banner uses it to snap his fingers and restore everyone but just then thanos travels through the quantum realm with his big battle cruiser and he flattens the whole avengers compound but everyone's alive in the rubble somehow okay i can buy guys like thor and banner being able to survive an assault like this but regular humans like hawkeye and ant-man really ah whatever so thanos dispatches past nebula to retrieve the gauntlet while he sits and waits for her to bring it to him hawkeye finds the gauntlet and he's trying to get it back to the time machine so they can return the stones to their various time periods but past nebula stops him and then present nebula shows up and there's a fight and past nebula gets killed well lucky for that whole different timeline thing otherwise present nebula would have just blinked out of existence anyway tony thor and cap show up to take on thanos themselves each of them goes at him with everything he has bombs missiles repulsor blasts lightning hammers axes even hand-to-hand combat and holy [ __ ] my cinema [ __ ] erupted when cap started using thor's hammer like an absolute boss it's a brilliant callback to age of ultron when he almost managed to lift it off a table but despite everything they threw at him thanos just can't be stopped he knocks out thor and tony leaving only cap standing alone injured and exhausted his shield broken his body damaged and beaten thanos summons his entire army to decimate earth telling cap he was wrong with his plan to wipe out half the universe this time he's gonna destroy everything and just start again but just as he's about to finish cap off the rest of the avengers arrive and i mean everyone every character that was wiped out by thanos every character that's ever been in these movies appears for this last epic battle what happens next is something that's pretty difficult for me to describe basically if you take every final battle from all the previous avengers films stick them in a blender and had a shot glass full of adrenaline you still won't even come close to this everyone gets their shot everyone gets a chance to shine and use their special moves jesus even pepper potts is there in a suit of iron man armor or is it iron woman iron person i don't really know the real focus of all this chaos and destruction is the gauntlet thanos is fighting to get his hands on it and everyone else is trying to stop him but he batters his way through them one after another just like he did in infinity war even captain marvel can't stop him so he gets the gauntlet and he snaps his fingers but tony's removed the stones without him seeing so he implants them into his own armor and with a final defiant look at thanos he snaps his fingers thanos can only watch as his entire army disintegrates around him just as he did to the avengers in the last movie everything he worked to achieve has been undone he lowers himself to the ground defeated pondering his failure and then slowly fades into dust as well tony mortally wounded by the use of the gauntlet dies peacefully with his wife and friends by his side a fulfilled man secure in the knowledge that the people he loves and cares about will be safe tony i raise my glass to you my friend after his funeral cap uses the time machine one last time to return the stones to their original time periods but instead of coming straight home he decides to stay in the past and he lives at his days with peggy carter showing up in the present eventually as an old man happy and content with the life he finally got to live he passes on his shield to falcon and the movie ends with a final shot of him and peggy in the 1940s dancing happily together in their home and that's it that's the plot of endgame now what do i actually think about it well i said of the start of this review that i walked out of the cinema feeling a bit confused about my feelings towards this film struggling to draw a definite conclusion one way or the other there were things that worked and things that didn't and as hard as i tried i couldn't help but compare this movie to infinity war when that movie ended i had to pick my job off the floor when i left the theater it's shaken the very core of the avengers universe delivered a stunning ensemble performance from the biggest cast of characters i'd ever seen flipped effortlessly between funny tragic and dramatic and introduced the most powerful and well-developed villain in the mcu and generally left me on a complete emotional high i expected a similar if not better experience with end game but for all the brilliant moments it does deliver it never quite reaches the heights of its predecessor the finale is bigger to be sure there's more pomp and spectacle than you could ever ask for but it just doesn't seem quite as smart quite as bold quite as unpredictable as infinity war was i might as well start with the biggest issue here the time travel this plot occupies the whole middle chunk of the movie and honestly it's the weakest aspect of the film by far it goes on for too long and it tries to deliver so many character moments that it kind of kills the momentum and the sense of urgency they're supposed to be in a literal race against time to recover the infinity stones before thanos catches up with them and instead we're spinning our wheels in the 1970s while tony banner's with his dad it feels like self-indulgent padding that really should have been cut back generally i'm not a fan of movies or tv shows that rely on time travel apart from the obvious of course to resolve their story lines it's the kind of cheap trick you pull out your arse when you've written yourself into a corner and you can't think of any other way to solve a problem it also opens up a whole pandora's box of unwelcome possibilities and paradoxes because once you establish past events as something that can be changed and manipulated well they lose impact because you realize that anything bad can simply be undone nothing matters because nothing's permanent anymore the movie tries its best to get around the paradox aspect with the multiple timelines explanation but honestly it still feels like a bit of a cop-out i also didn't like the constant revisiting of previous events and characters like the battle of new york or the ancient one or star-lord's discovery of an infinity stone i'm all for clever callbacks and little reminders to previous adventures but when you're literally reusing footage and events from previous movies and having your present-day characters try to sneak and maneuver around them it feels kind of cheap and tacky in a way i've never experienced with an avengers movie before wrapping the plot of end games so tightly around the events of other films makes it seem like it's using them as some kind of shield like it doesn't have a strong enough storyline to sustain itself one of the real highlights of infinity war for me was the exploration of thanos as a villain his drives his personality and motives he was a compelling villain because he had a clear objective and an understandable motivation for pursuing it he wasn't an evil man he was a pragmatist who saw things on a scale nobody else could even comprehend prepared to do unthinkable things for the greater good and the movie was smart enough to ask the question of whether his perspective might actually be right he didn't hate or even care that much about the avengers they were just obstacles for him to overcome to complete his mission he felt genuine remorse for killing gamora and he even showed respect to tony for the brave fight he put up but here he's a more simplistic kind of villain who now wants to destroy all life in the universe because one group of enemies refused to accept what he'd done like his entire world view has changed just because a handful of guys are fighting him again he's also now got a real personal hatred for the heroes and earth because i guess they had to raise the stakes and remove all doubt that thanos was wrong and needs to be destroyed it cheapens him in a way because all the nuance and depth of character that made him so compelling is kind of gone now speaking of characters i really don't know what they were going for with thor infinity war turned him into an absolute boss he'd finally come into his own and discovered his true power but now he's fat and drunk and he looks like the big lebowski and he suffers from panic attacks when he has to confront a previous love interest what the [ __ ] chris hemsworth spent three movies trying to find a winning strategy with thor and now that he's done it they've turned the guy into a total clown it's weird and i don't really understand what purpose it's supposed to serve here but now let's talk about the wooden elephant in the room there's been a lot of concern that captain marvel would overshadow this movie outshining everyone by being totally overpowered and even killing thanos herself christ if that had happened i really would have quit the mcu for good the bad news is that brie larson is just as boring wooden and unlikable as ever her character still has all the warmth and charisma of a sparring dummy and she's still op as [ __ ] the good news is that she's in the movie for like five minutes at most and she has no meaningful arc or interactions with the other characters she saves tony at the start and she shows up for the big rumble at the end but she's basically absent for the rest of the film though there is one pretty obnoxious scene where she has to fight through a bunch of enemies and every female character in the movie magically bands together to help run interference for her while lucky they all happen to be in that particular area the battlefield at that particular moment it's completely shameless feminist fan service if there is such a thing and it's one of those scenes you kind of just have to grit your teeth and get through her presence feels like a token gesture in this film like the writers thought well i guess we have to give her something to do and as it turns out they don't give her all that much so you can rest easy that she certainly doesn't ruin this film but that's enough negativity for me let's talk about the positives of which there are many well it goes without saying the end game looks and sounds amazing spectacle is something that marvel nailed years ago and they certainly never dropped the ball here the final battle where our reunited heroes joined forces against thanos and his army is something i just can't give enough props to i've published eight novels and written literally millions of words of descriptive text in my life and even i don't have the adjectives to properly express the enormity the ambition the cinematic mastery the sheer balls to the wall epicness of this scene every character gets their moment to shine every hero gets a chance to make a difference even in the smallest way it's quite simply brilliant to watch the kind of thing that fanboys will be obsessing over for years everyone involved with one obvious exception gives it everything they have here perhaps in particular to scarlett johansson and jeremy renner their scenes together are perfectly played and you feel the connection between these two characters when you never really have before i don't want to spoil things but i think you can guess what scenes i'm referring to a big mention as well must go to robert downey jr tony stark's always been my favorite avenger ever since the very first movie he's the guy who basically started it all and probably come the furthest in terms of character development it's been fascinating to see him go from a selfish and narcissistic playboy to a reluctant warrior a determined protector and finally a loving and compassionate family man he's made mistakes every step of the way to be sure he's stumbled and fallen but every time he's learned an atone for what he did and watching him make his final choice in endgame just felt like the perfect resolution for his character i could go on and on picking apart and analyzing every scene and plot point of this movie but i'll leave that job to other more competent reviewers and instead i'll settle for delivering what passes for my conclusion here endgame is a confident and solid movie that delivers a satisfyingly epic poignant and powerful conclusion to the mcu it successfully passes the torch onto the next generation while paying proper respect to those hanging up their capes for the last time it's a movie that delivers moments of absolute wonder and emotional impact it may play things a little safe at times and there are also moments where it feels kind of flabby and self-indulgent and there's a sense that it's not quite as smart or quite as impactful as its predecessor but it's still head and shoulders above pretty much anything else out there and let's be honest if you're an mcu fan then there's not much chance you won't watch it so go get it done and tell them the drinker sent you and that's all i have for today go away now

Channel: The Critical Drinker

Views: 1,217,083

Keywords: Avengers, Endgame, Iron Man, review, Black Widow, Thanos, Infinity War, Infinity Stone, Thor, Hulk, Bruce Banner, Black Panter, Black Panther, Hawkeye, Nebula, Brie Larson, Captain Marvel, SJW, Social Justice, Feminism, Pepper Potts, Robert Downey Jr, Tony Stark, MCU

Id: fmsqq_DpXow

Length: 20min 37sec (1237 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 25 2019