***NOTE: This review will contain mild spoilers about the plot, but with no who/what/when/where/why specifics!***
I’m not sure why Kevin Feige and co decided it would be a good idea to end this current phase of the MCU with Spider-Man: Far From Home, and not Avengers: Endgame because you couldn’t ask for a more perfectly executed “end of an era” type experience that would serve as the best conclusion before starting things anew. Granted, I wouldn’t necessarily call the film itself perfect, I’ll get into my quibbles soon enough, but it’s easily one of the best cinematic victory laps I think I’ve ever seen.
However, one thing I appreciated was the film’s willingness to take its time before it fully indulges itself. A lot of the first act devotes itself into exploring the world trying to piece itself back together in the wake of Thanos’ (Josh Brolin) snap that turned half the population into dust in the final moments of Infinity War. We see the emptiness, the memorials, the support groups, etc.
There is a feeling of disappointment and struggling to cope with such a monumental loss that blankets much of the first half of the film. Even when the team – which includes Captain America (Chris Evans), Iron Man (Tony Stark), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), War Machine (Don Cheadle), Rocket (Bradley Cooper), Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), and Nebula (Karen Gillan) – get together for a last ditch effort to possibly reverse the effects of the snap in an early scene, it’s also met with failure that the group collectively struggle to deal with overtime. At least, until Iron Man forms an idea with Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), which sets off the group on a wild adventure involving time travel.
I remember quite enjoying Avengers: Infinity War when it came out, but my enthusiasm for it has slowly been reduced to mostly indifference. Issues with the handling of Thanos as a character, unearned dramatic beats, and too-frantic-for-its-own-good pacing makes it an experience that I don’t have much desire to revisit. Thankfully, Endgame – while still essentially being an Infinity War Part II – manages to have a distinguish itself quite a bit from the chaos of the last film. It seems like directors, Joe and Anthony Russo, and writers, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, have finally found a good balance between the bonkers ideas/imagery and the affecting, character driven melodrama that makes the best of these movies so effective.
And boy, does this one go bonkers, the plot (which I won’t give away) dives into a lot of classic comic book convolutions. It uses the time travel gimmick to great effect, bringing in hilarious hijinks as well as strong character moments. Due to the nature of these kinds of stories, certain details don’t quite hold up to scrutiny, certain moments left me confused, and wondering if they were breaking the internal logic that the film had already setup. The ending makes no sense at all if you think about it for a minute (but it’s still a powerful ending, so I’m more than willing to let it slide). Plus, given the large cast, some characters get more screentime than others; Nebula in particular starts off significant, but once we reach the climax, her story feels a bit cut short, and a lot of the female characters in general don’t have as significant a role as many of the male characters.
The Russo Brothers hadn’t really impressed me that much since their debut in the MCU with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which achieves a specific post-Bourne look and feel that gave the action a grounded and gritty feel, and as soon as they began to expand with their future films, things got a bit shaky (and at times, literally so). The action here is solid enough, even if there is often too much coverage that the action keeps cutting between. A few points were a bit hard to tell who was doing what and where, but it’s a definitely an improvement over the overly jittery final battle from Infinity War. Their staging is better as well, even if the colors are still occasionally too muddled and muted.
However, while the film is by no means perfect, when it absolutely needs to work, it does. All the beats that needed to be executed damn near perfectly in order for this to work do end up coming together, so much so that the issues I do have ultimately pale in comparison to the way it made me felt as a whole. The return of certain characters brought so much joy, the death of certain characters were deeply felt, the fan service moments made me want to stand up and cheer. It’s the kind of thing that every blockbuster aims to be.
I suppose I can boil it down to just that. Avengers: Endgame is just a damn good time at the movies. It’s funny, thrilling, grand, and the cast continues to excel, especially Robert Downey Jr. The word that keeps coming to mind since leaving the theater is satisfying. How often are we disappointed by the conclusion of a series or franchise or a show? Maybe they don’t go the way we expect, maybe the people initially involved had no game plan, maybe they overthought things, maybe they were weighed down by expectations. There’s a variety of reasons that Avengers: Endgame shouldn’t really work, and yet, it does. That’s a miracle in and of itself, and the fact that it brought multiple satisfying resolutions to a number of characters that we grew with over the past decade-plus, bringing in callbacks and payoffs to things you wouldn’t even expect, and have it all resonate with an audience is one hell of an achievement after 21 movies.