Avengers: Endgame 2019
A-
I was happy to get to see this, along with most everyone in the world, during the first weekend it was out. The AMC theater I usually go to recently switched to all reserved seating and on Friday, I was able to get decent seats at a Sunday afternoon showing. The movie is 3 hours long, which I think is good to know going in. Without giving away some of the major events that happen, I will say they did a good job with this movie. Kind of like a series finale, they go back and touch on a lot of the previous 21 Marvel movies, knowing that probably very few people have seen all of them. Not as funny as some of the movies lately, there are still some funny elements, especially from Thor with decent one-liners from Iron Man. Things start off a little overwrought as Iron Man blames Captain America for losing the battle against Thanos which they were never going to win, but that gets pushed aside fairly quickly. There are a lot of touching family moments, real emotion, and of course a lot of action. Unfortunately there is also a lot of really questionable science (what Thor calls “space magic"), which is maybe to be expected, but I really don’t like it and it has been one of the downfalls of the Ant-Man series. Sometimes the movie drags a little and it seems like some of the stuff going on is just filler, but there is a lot of ground to cover and the movie goes by fairly quickly, building up to a big finish. In the end the movie is a pretty satisfying way to close this chapter of the Avengers.
spoilers
You almost can’t even talk about the movie without giving stuff away, so don’t read this if you haven’t watched yet. I had a lot of quibbles with things that happen in the movie. No baseball? Half of the people were killed, not 90% of them. Cutting the population in half would be like returning to 1970. It feels like they almost skipped over what should have been a major part of the movie: returning the stones. Most of this movie was about getting them back and they just have Captain America do it by himself? No backup? And then he can, what, just swim around to wherever he wants to go in time and space? I was happy for his ending, but it seemed too convenient. And it is great he made hawk guy the new Captain America, but hawk guy doesn’t have super strength. Time travel in general is problematic. It starts out that time has slowed down for Ant-Man, but Einstein says that can happen. What can’t happen is going back in time, so they kind of lost me with that jump. Thanos gets a conduit into the future? Does he have Pym particles? As in the first movie, the Avengers all try to fight Thanos with essentially no real effect. What is Spider-man supposed to accomplish that Hulk and Thor can’t? All of the people wiped out in the first movie have almost zero screen time. Hawkeye’s wife’s phone still works 5 years later even though her plan has undoubtedly expired? Good luck with that. Then Captain Marvel is like Superman, so far and above every other superhero that she is really the only one needed in the first place. She can push a ship through space at hyperspeed and gently place it on Earth. I feel like she should have had a chance against Thanos. For that matter, she probably could have worn the gauntlet without much trouble.
Written: 28 Apr 2019
Owned on: UHD, Blu-ray, Digital