Review: Avengers Endgame
This review is in two parts. A spoiler-free review is above the cut, and the spoilers are below.
I saw AVENGER’S ENDGAME. I recommend this film in the strongest possible terms. It is, if I may, a marvel of a movie. I praise, laud, and magnify this movie with an infatuated delirium.
I am awestruck.
For better or worse, it is entertaining if sadistic to write about bad movies, because the endless groaning, griping, and nitpicking is endlessly amusing. But there is little to say about a good movie, because when all parts are in proportion, and the film elevates the audience into a clearer insight into the human condition, and it does it job so well, like the work done my angels, it is often unseen: you need repeated re-viewings to absorb the nuances or to see all the frenetic action.
There is even less to say about a great movie, because the discreet reviewer urgently wants not to spoil any surprises or plot twists, or ruin any jokes by any forewarning. Even to say whether the heroes win or lose is too much information in a film like this.
This movie was more than great, so I am left with almost nothing to say to those who have not yet seen it.
It is a privilege for which enough thanks cannot be tendered that a lifelong fan of science fiction, fantasy, and superhero comics like me just so happens to live in generation when the entertainment industry expended unparalleled effort, fortune, and genius to bring to the big screen SFF and genre works that will never be matched again.
Specifically, I mean the years between George Lucus’ STAR WARS (1977), Bruce Timm’s venture into the DC Animated Universe (1992-2004) up until AVENGERS ENDGAME (2019).
ENDGAME is a fitting finish and finale to Hollywood’s fling with genre fiction.
I say it is the finish not because Hollywood plans not to make more superhero and science fiction films in years to come. They certainly have such plans.
My sad but certain prediction is that more SFF films and MCU films will be made, but they will be rotten.
We have seen the corruption and downfall of DOCTOR WHO, STAR TREK, and STAR WARS. Political Correctness has replaced story telling. The rot spread to once-beloved children’s cartoons as long ago as LEGEND OF KORRA. The print industry of DC and Marvel is so firmly in the hands of the virtue-signalling loons that no one need be tempted to spend even a dime on their work.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe, up until CAPTAIN MARVEL, resisted the pressure from the forces of Political Correctness. But like the first snowflake of late autumn, in this film there is the cold hint of the coming darkness. It is not even a scene, merely one line here, one shot there. But even the first, smallest symptom of an incurable plague is dispositive. Future MCU films will be unwatchable garbage.
But not this movie. One line here, one shot there, is not enough to detract from the exultation of wonder, the joys and sorrows, the happy endings and tragic sacrifices that is the culmination of so many years of big-budget record-breaking blockbuster film-making.
I am awestruck because never has there been such a sustained and uninterrupted effort of interconnecting so many movies over so many years into one coherent triumph of story telling.
Can I recommend this film to everyone? Certainly not.
I know there are those who regard superhero tales as shallow, on the ground that the invulnerable super-people can neither suffer nor grow. Such opinions are incomprehensible given everything done since Alexander Suskind’s SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE, and can only be the product of a soul unable to form a sympathy with persons from a world more wierd and fantastic than our own.
There are folk with a terminal case of “the muggles.” They must pass this film by.
There are those who never saw or cannot recall the events of the previous score and a half films set in this shared background. They will be baffled and lost by the large cast of characters.
Certainly the film is not to be seen by anyone who has not seen the first half of this story INFINITY WARS. You do not walk into Shakespeare’s HAMLET halfway through Act III and expect to follow what it going on, or start reading Tolkien’s trilogy with RETURN OF THE KING.
Everyone else should do see it. Multiple times.
The only spoiler I will deliberately say is no spoiler at all, but a head’s-up. There is no after-credits scene or Easter eggs waiting once the end music starts. There is no set up for any further projects hidden in an afterword.
WARNING! Spoilers below the cut.
I saw this movie with no preconceptions whatsoever, not even the slightest hint of what was coming up, and no speculations but my own. My enjoyment would have been diminished sharply by any foreknowledge. I strongly suggest, nay, I beg, that no one who has not seen the film read below the cut.
This discussion is only for those who have seen the film.
NO PEEKING, PLEASE!!
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The story opens with one of the saddest and most haunting scenes I have ever seen.
Clint Barton the Hawkeye is at home, having a picnic with his family, teaching his daughter how to shoot and arrow. He turns around, and silence suddenly falls. He looks back. The daughter is gone. A few flakes of ash hang on the breeze. He calls for his wife. No answer.
The camera pans back: the wide miswestern meadow has nothing, not even a bush, to block any view of anything, and no place a person could reach, not in an hour’s walk. But ashes hang for the moment over the picnic table where his beloved wife and two sons were just chatting. Then the ash disintegrates.
Then we cut to Iron Man and Nebula running out of oxygen in the middle of the star-spangled void of infinite space. He is recording one last farewell message to Pepper Potts …
The is a little bit of business with Captain Marvel at the beginning, and I was surprised at how much I hated the character from the first instant she was on stage, and I was annoyed when Thor or Rocket Raccoon complimented or flattered her for being so tough, and I just wanted her out of the film.
My wish was granted.
I have heard the rumor that the film maker actually filmed two versions of several crucial scenes, one with her present and one with her absent, and, after Marvel’s film marvelously bombed, they wisely minimized her role.
Her role is to help the Avengers discover the cottage where Thanos is living a life of rustic simplicity. The first brilliant plot twist happens when they discover him, living on a world without a single trooper, no weapons, nothing. He is burned and scarred, as if he survived the point blank impact of some terrible weapon. He laughs at their dream of reversing what he has done.
And, in another shockingly head-fake which left me guessing, we see Thor confront Thanos, with an unexpected result. Nonetheless, Thanos has won an irreversible victory. The half of the universe he killed cannot be brought to life again.
The Avengers have failed. They lost. There is no hope, and no starting again. Grief descends.
The first third of the movie is just about grief and how to deal with it, or not to deal with it. In each case, the film made a surprising, sometimes a brilliant, decision, opening up vistas into the psychology of our heroes somewhat unexpected for a blockbluster action film.
Iron Man’s character arc throughout the last decade of MCU films — and please take a moment to ponder how impressive it is to have a character arc extend across nine films and eleven years — is the conflict between his womanizing, thoughtless, egocentric playboy self, and his growing awareness, starting in the first film, that his role is to protect the world. In the middle films his attempt to live up to the duty causes him to go astray, and then he overcorrects, trying to coat the whole globe in armor, at it were, which accidentally creates Ultron, and this, in turn, leads to his support during the Civil War film for UN control of the Avengers.
He deals with the grief in the way which is the least expected because most mature: he settles down, marries Pepper, and has a child.
Thor’s method of dealing with the grief is both the most realistic and the most hilarious. What else would a Viking do? He drowns his dolor in drink. But, again, brilliantly unexpected. It makes sense for the character, but it is not what I expected of the character.
Black Widow tries to bury herself in work. The problem is, with half the world’s population dead, half the supervillains are gone, and the Avengers are doing meaningless little things, the super version of traffic cops.
And Hawkeye? He turns into The Ronin, who is basically like The Punisher, and starts slaughtering evildoers wherever he finds them, getting ever more reckless and bloodthirsty. This sort of makes him my favorite character because they did that, but, dang, it is very dark, rather unexpected, but shows a side of the character nor seen before. I do not blame him a bit.
It is also a bit from the comics.
Hulk has dealt with the tragedy by growing a brain. He is now Professor Hulk, with the brains (and the CGI face) of Bruce Banner, but retaining the strength of the Hulk. Again, this is simply brilliant writing. Not only is this true to the source material, the sight of Hulk the monster raging, or Bruce moping, would have been underwhelming.
But the understated way, when Black Widow says no one blames him for failing to beat up Thanos, he says “I do” — is something that has more weight coming from Professor Hulk than from either Hulk or from the Professor.
Captain America, on the other hand, is still carrying a torch for a girl from the 1940’s who died decades later. Even if all those obliterated by Thanos were resurrected, she would still be gone. His high ideals and fighting spirit have failed. He cannot move on, he cannot let it go.
We see him in a grief counselling group, trying to be the idealistic torchbearer of hope he has always been, but he lacks any light to share.
The sole misstep the film makes is here: a wart on an otherwise perfectly portrait. Steve Rogers from 1940s is talking with a weepy man about learning to date again, but then, surprise, the man is a homosexual, and the object of his infatuation is another man.
Not only was this not a thing men celebrated and cheered in AD 1945, it was not something men encouraged or even tolerated. Homosex was illegal in all 48 states.
This lame and lamebrained scene was a leftwing sucker punch, a public service announcement for sodomy, because, hey, what story about cosmic death and life, courage and virtue, would be complete without a public show of support for perversion?
But, mind you, the thing is so small that if the surrounding film had not been so good, it would not be worthy of mention.
If it had been Tony Stark the playboy, or Bruce Banner the scientist, or anyone other than the All-American Boy from WWII, I would not have minded or noticed.
But I noticed this: it spells the end of the MCU. They were able to resist the pressure to kiss the anus of Baphomet ere now. No longer.
The second act was the return of Ant Man. He saves the universe. Sort of.
But fans seeking autographs still don’t know who he is.
Another touch of brilliance was the brief and creepy scene where Ant Man walks through an unkempt neighborhood, meeting a little kid who turns away in silence when asked what happened to the world. He finds his dilapidated home, and his daughter is now a teenager.
In the second act, the Avengers break into teams, and use a time travel side effect, already adumbrated in the Ant Man movies, of the quantum realm, to recover earlier versions of the Infinity Gems. They break into teams and each go to a different location in time and space.
Time travel stories, to me, are always an exercise in Escher drawing perspectives, where every isolated part of the infinitely rising or descending staircase or moebius strip makes sense to the eye, but the overall picture is a paradox.
I confess I find time travel tales mildly undramatic, because drama comes from actions having inevitable consequences: but in time travel tales, cause and effect, hence morality, is reversed. Drama is less, because your future self should be able to undo any mistakes you make because he will in your future still have the same time machine you have now, won’t he?
The main joy of time paradox stories is seeing with what cleverness the writer can hand wave these and other obvious objections away.
But here, with an amusing number of tongue-in-cheek pop culture references, the whole business of paradoxes is neatly explained away with a many-worlds theory. In other words, nothing done in the past will change the present of the main time line, only creating a alternate present parallel to the first. But in a next scene, the a moral obligation to return anything taken to the very minute it is carried off is shouldered, so even the theoretical divergent time branches the time meddling might cause never branch off.
This neatly quiets any talk of what the Avengers might do with the Infinity Gems after they attempt to undo the original reality-altering genocide of Thanos. More to the point, it is established as a plot point that the gems cannot reincarnate anyone not de-incarnate by the gems.
This in turn neatly quiets the obvious questions that arise in other science fiction and fantasy stories where, once the plot established, for example, the Pyramid of Ra of the Egyptian Book of the Dead can resurrect the dead love interest, no one answers the question of why not resurrect Uncle Ben or Bruce Wayne’s parents?
However, there is a real and profound drama available to a time travel story found rarely elsewhere, but is the deepest desire of the heart: to see a dead loved one again for a final word of farewell.
The time travel gimmick allowed for a fan favorite hammer, destroyed by Hela, to reappear.
Clever editing and camera tricks allows the various missions to see scene from prior movies from new angles, and clever writing allows more than one character to see a childhood memory with adult eyes from a new perspective.
Tony Stark speaks to his long-dead father, who is nervous because his son, to be named Tony, is about to be born. He wonders what it takes to be a good father. Tony himself, the father of a new daughter, has thoughts on the matter.
Thor has a parallel scene with his mother, except that she, being a witch, knows who and what the stranger from another time is.
Even better, we get to see Captain America fighting Captain America. (He does not stop pounding himself in the face once he discovers his mother’s name is also Martha — that is another movie.)
A favorite scene of mine was when the Hulk went to Dr Strange’s house before Dr Strange was a sorcerer, and tries to yank the Amulet of Agamotto from the Ancient One, only to find his disembodied spirit hovering over the scene while gigantic empty body is parked on a lawn chair.
And Rocket gets to see Star Lord singing 1980’s pop songs into the mouth of a stunned space rat. The side trips down memory lane for fans of the previous dozen or score of movies were an ornament, not a distraction, to the plot.
Black Widow and Hawkeye are trapped in a dilemma for which there is no solution: in the otherworldly limbo guarded by what seems to be the ghost of the Red Skull, in order to take possession of the Soul Gem, one must sacrifice a loved one.
Neither is willing to let the other be that sacrifice, but the only way to save the other was to lay down one’s own life. Each battles to save the other by subduing and immobilizing the other. This not only hearkens back to the first Avenger’s movie, where Widow and Hawkeye brawled, it also hearkens back to their ongoing fondness for each other which has been their from the first.
It is a gripping, painful, horrible scene. Like everything in the movie, it is well done.
But using all six gems at once releases so much energy, it has already been established, that only the Hulk has a chance of attempting the feat, and surviving. To anyone else, it is sure death.
At this point, Thanos shows himself to be a villain worthy of the Wagnerian ending of a Marvel epic. Thanos from then years gone by discovers the intrusion of the time travelers into his year, and soon learns their plans. Then he pursues them back to their home time, blows their base to smithereens, and summons his troops to take possession of the gems.
The third act is the fight scene. It is Armageddon, worthy of the pens of Joe Simon, Stan Lee, Don Heck, and Jack Kirby.
Thanos realizes how to avoid the mistake of his prior version. In an utterly chilling moment, he declares that, instead of killing half the universe, he will kill all, and remake all, and so the new universe of creatures born of his imagination will have no memories of anything previous, no reason for discontent.
Battle ensues, then escalates, and then escalates again.
Just when all is lost, the spinning fiery teleport-portals of Dr Strange and all the world’s magicians appear, with all the resurrected dead in his wake, Wakandians with vibranium weapons appear, and all the superheroes from all the prior movies.
There is an impressive moment as all the artillery of the evil space navy stops pounding the armies below, and turns skyward frantically blasting away at some target approaching through the clouds, while the onlookers below gape in wonder.
The scene is undercut because it turns out to be someone annoying, now sporting a short, butch haircut, who is granted the “unearned valor” of being treated as a superheroine and cheered as a superheroine, without actually doing much of anything superheroic onstage.
There is a second misstep in the battle sequence, when, for some reason, instead of Spiderman, who can dodge machinegun bullets, and Black Panther, who is badly a badass vibranium powered super ninja, stop trying to play keepaway with the Infinity McGuffin, and pass it a superheroine. Then the Scarlet Witch, a very non-blonde version of Valkyrie, Shuri of Wakanda, Mantis the space girl, Hope van Dyne, Gamora and Nebula, and even Pepper Potts in her own Iron Girl Power suit pop up out of nowhere to help her, even though these characters do not have any reason suddenly to be all on that side of the battlefield doing this.
It is a misstep. Imagine if the shoe were on the other foot, and suddenly, but for no reason inside the story, Daredevil, Nightcrawler, Huntress, Dr Mid Nite, Hellboy, Witchblade, Zorro, Banshee, Sunspot, Vindicator, Firestar, Shamrock, Gambit, Daimian Hellstrom, Ghost Rider, Dum Dum Dugan, Friar Tuck, King Arthur, the Punisher and Catwoman all just so happened to be at one side of the battlefield, praying the rosary, when the Virgin Mary, bright as the sun, holding twelve stars, and having the moon beneath her feet, appeared before them in a vision, and led the charge. The superheroes would then defeat the Turk at Lepanto and save the West. You would feel that the film makers had lost sight of the story being told in order to make some sort of point about how swell Catholics were.
I am sure Catholics are swell. I am sure women are swell as well. Some of my best friends are women. But it was a clear sign of surrender. MCU no longer wants to tell stories, they want to signal virtue.
Keep in mind how minor is my complaint here. The scene is one you will miss if you blink. It is not emphasized.
And all the other little tidbits and sly winks the film maker inserted to please the hardcore fans land spot on target.
One such tidbit is introducing Falcon with the phrase “on your left” which is the first thing he said to Cap when they first met while jogging.
Another is the moment when Captain America is deemed worthy to wield the hammer of Thor, another bit of business straight from the comics.
Yet another tidbit is when the famous battlecry is spoken “Avengers Assemble.” The audience I was with cheered.
There is another callback to a previous film, when Iron Man’s daughter asks Happy Hogan for cheeseburgers for her meal. Like daughter, like dad.
The best tidbit is the scene during the time travel shenanigans when Captain America is in an elevator full of Hydra Agents disguised as SHIELD Agents trying to spirit away the Tesseract. He claims to have been sent from central command, but they do not believe him. He whispers “Hail, Hydra!” into the ear of the chief bad guy, who, now thinking Cap is a double agent, lets him waltz away with the prize.
Not only is this brilliant writing in its own right, it mocks and allays all the fanboy controversy surrounding the blasphemous decision in Marvel Comics to make Cap a Hydra agent. In two words, the stupidest decision in all of Marvel continuity is inverted and undone. I doff my hat and lay it over my heart.
And at least one fan-favorite villain gets a new shot at not being dead, when someone accidentally drops a tesseract near his toe.
Rocket the Raccoon gets to reprise his famous everyone has lost someone speech.
Doctor Strange has the sad duty to not say nor silently imply to the man doomed to win them victory what the time stone told him about the price of that victory, for to speak would be to hinder it from happening. He can only look on silently.
More than one hero has to make an ultimate sacrifice. I doubt I can go into detail without getting misty eyed with emotion. It is a heroic end, sad, but satisfying.
But there are other heroes who, beyond all hope, get a happy ending. Again, I will mist up if I tell any details. It very satisfying, perfectly satisfying.
But there is a scene where Cap passes his legacy and his shield onto Falcon. I have seen other reviewers who scoffed at this moment, because they did not get it. Why did Steve not give his shield to Bucky? The answer in-story is that Bucky is a nutcase on the run from the law hiding out in Wakanda, whereas Sam Wilson has been his pal since the second Cap movie, and is sane and not hunted by cops. The answer out-story is that this is a nod to we fans who would have nerd-griped and nerd-rioted with nerd-vexation had the lore of the source material been treated disrespectfully.
The sheer number of famous actors and actresses either being digitally thrust into scene or returning to reprise roles must set some sort of Hollywood record. I think it was everyone but Anthony Hopkins.
There are funerals and farewells, at least one happily-ever-after, and some bittersweet.
But Thanos comes to precisely the ironic end he deserves after seeing both his daughters turn from him and his wickedness, and all his armies, troops, navies and dream blow away like dust.
The dead are buried and the survivors get married, and what more can you ask from a finale?
Star Lord, who is alive again, has another chance to meet Gamora, who is from the past and does not remember him, and punches him in the gut. They will join Fat Thor aboard their starship as the Asgaurdians of the Galaxy.
You may laugh, but what stood out to me the most in this film was the acting. Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth and Jeremy Renner all gave better performances, with more humanity and depth, than I have seen them give in other Avengers films.
The story was more personal this time, and the sacrifices were real and bit deep.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe, I am afraid I must predict, are officially dead. The president of the company said this:
In March, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige said films like “Captain Marvel” and “Black Panther” represent the future of the MCU. After all, Marvel hired Chloe Zhao to direct “The Eternals,” and Cate Shortland was tapped to direct the standalone “Black Widow” movie.
“The notion of representation on screen, in front of and behind the camera, somebody asked me once, so is ‘Black Panther’ a one-off? I said, no, it’s not a one-off. This is the future,” he said. “This is the way the world is, and the way, certainly, our studio’s going to be run going forward, because it brings about better stories. The more diverse the group of people making the movie is, the better the stories.”
That is the sound of a lemming saluting the banner that will send him over the edge into the endless drop of political correctness. It is the noise of an artist or an entrepreneur betraying his craft and spurning his customers to put something stupid above story telling.
I cannot grieve. Some miracle might cure the madness that has ruined every other major franchise in pop culture.
This movie was a fitting triumph to a series a movies, a new genre of movies, that built story arcs across franchises and accommodated both brilliant stand-alones and fan-beloved crossover events. I can think of nothing like it in the film world, nor can I think of characters as well known and beloved since childhood by so many.
Say farewell to heroism. No more stories about heroes will be told. They are no longer in fashion.
But rejoice that this last film of heroism is a fitting final flourish before all the lamps go out.
I, for one, will certainly see it again.
This time, I know to take the bathroom breaks whenever Brie Larson is onscreen.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
