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We saw Avengers; Endgame and it was mostly disappointing
This movie is already making a ton of money and likely will break all the records. It's the end of a long build-up and the second half of a movie that ended on a cliffhanger of sorts. Although we "know" what's going to happen because of leaks and future movie plans and such there's a value in seeing how it's pulled off.
It's also the final performance of some actors who have become identified with the roles over the past decade+. Lots of people - most of a generation - have grown up with Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Chris Evans as Captain America, and Chris Hemsworth as Thor. Not only are these actors now the iconic faces of those characters, the real-life decisions by each of them to end their roles within the MCU drives a lot of interest in seeing how they end things. It's been obvious for a while now that the Russos have had character arcs in mind for all of the major players and though different writers have penned the screenplays it's all fit within a particular vision. Seeing the denoument of that vision is compelling.
Or, should have been. Mostly I left the theater feeling a little sad and a lot empty and confused. Despite the movie's vaunted three-hour length there's both too much and not enough here. Trying to fit everything in leads to a scattered and jumpy narrative with a deeply confused third act that requires you basically ignore almost everything that has been set up beforehand. Obviously, talking about this is going to require major spoilers, so herewith a cut tag...
I want to start by talking about some things I think the film got right, specifically the major arcs for Iron Man and Captain America. For Cap in particular you have to throw logic completely out the window but it's right and satisfying. For secondary characters, I think the Black Widow arc is good (but see below) but I think they flub almost every other character.
Iron Man's endgame starts with him saying he wanted to pull off one more miracle. Which he sort of doesn't - he lost to Thanos and he survives only because he's rescued. (How did Captain Marvel know where to find that spaceship? It was, apparently, weeks away from the battle - don't even ask.) Stark goes on to have a real life after he's rescued, with his only emotional tie back to before the snap being Peter Parker/Spider Man whose death in Tony's arms clearly still haunts him. Gwyneth Paltrow is one of the underrated talents of this film and the whole arc, providing the foil for almost all of Stark's antics. In this film she shows up, fighting in armor (where did THAT come from??) but crucially she's present at Tony's death and instead of being emotional and weepy she is comforting and stable. I felt her reaction most strongly because I believe Pepper Potts has known this day was coming ever since Iron Man nearly sacrificed himself to propel a nuke into the portal above New York. That was the set-up for the payoff of Iron Man putting on the gauntlet knowing he would not survive. If you recall the nuke scene, Stark tries to call Potts and she misses the call; this time, she doesn't miss. It's a brilliant moment, probably the best of this film.
Cap's ending has been the subject of a lot of dudebro wankery about how Cap should've gone out fighting or somesuch. That's bullshit. Cap has always been biding his time, figuring out his place. He stands up to Thanos again and again. Last film he did it barehanded; this time we get to see him wielding not only his iconic shield but actually whirling Mjolnir around. The mini-payoff line when he first gets the hammer of Thor saying "I knew it" is insanely good. Cap is indeed worthy - and then he gets his ass kicked again by Thanos. There's a close-up shot of him on the battlefield with the top of his shield sliced off and he's covered in blood and dust and he pushes himself up off the ground. I 100% expected Captain Marvel to fly in and help him up.
(Aside: I think the movie largely misused and wasted Captain Marvel. Aside from the early scenes where she puts herself out as the decisive difference and her interaction with Thor she's essentially absent from the film. I know the film was supposed to be about the (original) Avengers and all that but she's in there to fight and she should have been paired with Cap at least once.)
So Cap has fought his fights and when all is said and done he still doesn't belong in this place and time. He takes the chance to finally experience the romance he missed out on by sacrificing himself in the first place. It's almost a neat dual to Tony's story, as Tony has to sacrifice the romance he's found. Unfortunately, for me to believe this happens the way it seems to in the movie requires... well, one more good thing first.
The final thing I think is worth calling to attention is how Black Widow is handled. All along I gave credit to the movies for not sexualizing the character. Both as the only female character among a bunch of male Avengers and as a character portrayed by a highly conventionally attractive actress, Black Widow would seem to be one for falling into bed with someone. Instead, she doesn't. She becomes Cap's best buddy - a real friend in a relationship whose problems are never about attraction, but rather about friendship and loyalty. Widow sacrifices herself in this movie as someone beloved - Barton/Hawkeye clearly loves her and likely there is a past story there. But he has a family and he's devoted to them. There's never a moment between Widow and anyone else where she's using her appearance to get what she wants. (OK there's that memorable "I'm conducting an interrogation here" line, but that's pure set-up.) There's a lot you can rightly criticize in the MCU about how it has mis-handled its female characters; I want to give credit for this one. I particularly liked the dialog, which is all about the two of them interacting, not about "oh I have to do this noble thing because Cosmic Reasons." She flat-out tells him "let me go" which is both a nice double-meaning line and an entire story in itself.
OK, so what about all of that... other stuff.
First, we have a credibility problem. I don't think this film actually believes anything it says. There is a moment where The Ancient One explains to us (through Bruce Banner) how time travel is going to work. You get to split realities, not change the future by messing with the past. Uh, OK. Sure. So please explain to me why (how) Gamora lives and Black Widow doesn't. We get this emotional bit where Banner tells us he tried to use the un-snap to bring her back and couldn't. So? Go back in time and get her. Presto. Since you're not actually changing the future this way... come on.
Also, please explain to me how Thanos comes through the gate? Never mind a giant frelling army space navy whatever. The movie has carefully told us how hard this is and how it's necessary to conserve Pym particles and so everyone only gets one shot (well OK Cap and Iron Man cheat but even then they have to steal more particles from the past). But suddenly Evil Nebula can flip a few switches and bring through a Chitauri invasion force? Uh... no.
I won't even go into how ... something is able to detect that something (Captain Marvel) has entered the upper atmosphere but somehow missed the GIANT FRELLING SPACESHIP that suddenly appeared and started bombing Avengers HQ. Yeah, sure.
Then Captain America just gets to go back and ... what? How does returning the stones to the past fix anything? If you've already split reality aren't you just splitting it again? Like, you have Reality 1 (ours) then you steal a stone and create Reality 2. Then you return the stone somehow to Reality 2 (don't ask me how you timetravel to Reality 2 rather than Reality 1 because Quantum Realm-ium solves that problem) but by the rules you just told us returning the stone re-splits that reality so now you have Reality 3 and that doesn't even seem vaguely like a solution.
However, I think you have to believe that version because the alternative is you believe Cap went back and took over Peggy Carter's life. He (our Steve Rogers) knows that she moved on after 1940s Steve Rogers disappeared and had her own life/family. Either he splits her timeline, creating Reality 4 in which he lives with her, or he destroys her family by making it never exist since she stays with him. Either you believe Cap did the most un-Cap-like thing ever or you believe that returning the stones is an entire bullshit exercise that he can't/doesn't actually do if the movie-universe rules are what we've been told they are.
In addition, if you believe that time-traveling Cap exists in the same reality as Endgame-start Cap then you have to believe that for all of this time there have been two Captain Americas and one of them just sat back and let Hydra and Segovia and all of that happen. Basically, you'd have to believe he sacrificed hundreds or thousands of preventable deaths for his own personal enjoyment. I don't buy that for a second, not least of all because the Marvel universe, including the MCU, has been clear about how Peggy Carter kept herself in the game and came back when it was clear there was a need her skills matched. Are we expected to believe that being with Steve Rogers somehow deterred her from doing that, or that she did it but he stayed at home... like, watching TV or something?
This confusion about how "repairing" time works also calls into question how/where/whether Gamora still exists in Reality 1. We don't have any direct evidence for it, but that's certainly the implication of the scenes inside the (as)Guardian ship where they appear to be using some kind of computer program to search for her. I also can't figure out how she's around and Loki isn't. Because Loki sure as hell ported out during the screw-up in Reality 2. So maybe he only exists in that reality and not our Reality 1?
Returning to the stones for a moment, how does Cap actually RETURN some of the stones? Like, how do you return the Soul Stone? Does the stone go back to being some amorphous soul-swapping mass? How? Does Cap go to Asgard (how?) and re-inject a stone (which is now a solid object) into Jane Foster? The movie has spent a good deal of Thor's and Rocket's dialog on this peculiarity and how Rocket has to sneak up on her with a weird prong-y thing. I can't imagine Cap asking politely to inject a solid rock into her... something.
And while I'm at it, how many people here remember the fundamental explanation of what the Infinity Stones are in the MCU? Let me help you - as The Collector and others have told us, they are what _creates_ our reality. Not a trivial thing. So if you (Thanos) destroy that which creates reality... why is reality still here?
This whole mess reminds me of the disturbing lack of sense that pervades Thanos's original plan in the first half of this movie. Thanos, who ought to be the Biggest Bad Ever has the sense of a doofus who took like one intro Freshman Economics course and mostly didn't pay attention during it. His new plan is just "kill everyone" because that will prevent anyone ever remembering how things were so he can then create a new universe that will behave exactly the same way as the current one. Except somehow not.
This entire thing is so headache-inducingly wrong as to distract me from the good parts of the movie.
Likewise, there's an obvious moment in the movie where the Russos are saying "look how awesome our women are" that only serves to highlight how badly they've been treated in every other movie. Giving them one sweeping relay-race scene in this movie doesn't make up for that. Yes, Marvel, you have an amazing stable of characters to draw from, not to mention the ones you haven't touched. Why have you done so poorly by them in that case?
I felt that so much during the brief exchange between Scarlet Witch and Thanos where she says "You took everything from me" and he says "I don't even know who you are". Well, yes. That's the fault of the scriptwriters and the Russos right there. A more successful moment is the Thor-Frigga scene where she backhanded compliments him for coming to the smartest person on Asgard for help. The movie appears to make clear that she's aware of her impending death, about which she seems totally calm. This foreshadows Pepper's last scene with Tony.
I can't let this go without throwing at least one spitball at how badly they botched the Banner/Hulk story. This thing has been a thread through a couple movies and the disappearance of the Hulk after his initial defeat at Thanos's hands was a big point in the previous movie. Now we start this movie and HEY PRESTO everything is better! No more neuroses, no more anger, just one happy two-spirit being. I believe Banner/Hulk could get here, but having it happen entirely offscreen is terrible.
Less terrible, but still terrible, is how the Asgardians are treated. Apparently they somehow go to Earth after Thanos trashes their ship and then snaps half the survivors out of existence. Because ... reasons. Apparently of all the other planets none were closer/suitable? And apparently this entire society of warriors has transformed into a semi-agricultural fishing... village? I can't even imagine how this happens. Yes, I know that Thor had ordered a "return" to Earth but that was before Thanos, which apparently made no difference to the plan. The entire point of this seems to be to have Thor take over the PTSD role from Tony and Banner, along with a terrible fat suit and some non-trivial fat shaming. I thought the entire bit was cringe-worthy and should have been handled vastly differently.
Bottom line: as an emotional experience, this movie has several things to recommend it. As a movie you want to be the peak of the longest arc in American movie history it falls massively short.
It's also the final performance of some actors who have become identified with the roles over the past decade+. Lots of people - most of a generation - have grown up with Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Chris Evans as Captain America, and Chris Hemsworth as Thor. Not only are these actors now the iconic faces of those characters, the real-life decisions by each of them to end their roles within the MCU drives a lot of interest in seeing how they end things. It's been obvious for a while now that the Russos have had character arcs in mind for all of the major players and though different writers have penned the screenplays it's all fit within a particular vision. Seeing the denoument of that vision is compelling.
Or, should have been. Mostly I left the theater feeling a little sad and a lot empty and confused. Despite the movie's vaunted three-hour length there's both too much and not enough here. Trying to fit everything in leads to a scattered and jumpy narrative with a deeply confused third act that requires you basically ignore almost everything that has been set up beforehand. Obviously, talking about this is going to require major spoilers, so herewith a cut tag...
I want to start by talking about some things I think the film got right, specifically the major arcs for Iron Man and Captain America. For Cap in particular you have to throw logic completely out the window but it's right and satisfying. For secondary characters, I think the Black Widow arc is good (but see below) but I think they flub almost every other character.
Iron Man's endgame starts with him saying he wanted to pull off one more miracle. Which he sort of doesn't - he lost to Thanos and he survives only because he's rescued. (How did Captain Marvel know where to find that spaceship? It was, apparently, weeks away from the battle - don't even ask.) Stark goes on to have a real life after he's rescued, with his only emotional tie back to before the snap being Peter Parker/Spider Man whose death in Tony's arms clearly still haunts him. Gwyneth Paltrow is one of the underrated talents of this film and the whole arc, providing the foil for almost all of Stark's antics. In this film she shows up, fighting in armor (where did THAT come from??) but crucially she's present at Tony's death and instead of being emotional and weepy she is comforting and stable. I felt her reaction most strongly because I believe Pepper Potts has known this day was coming ever since Iron Man nearly sacrificed himself to propel a nuke into the portal above New York. That was the set-up for the payoff of Iron Man putting on the gauntlet knowing he would not survive. If you recall the nuke scene, Stark tries to call Potts and she misses the call; this time, she doesn't miss. It's a brilliant moment, probably the best of this film.
Cap's ending has been the subject of a lot of dudebro wankery about how Cap should've gone out fighting or somesuch. That's bullshit. Cap has always been biding his time, figuring out his place. He stands up to Thanos again and again. Last film he did it barehanded; this time we get to see him wielding not only his iconic shield but actually whirling Mjolnir around. The mini-payoff line when he first gets the hammer of Thor saying "I knew it" is insanely good. Cap is indeed worthy - and then he gets his ass kicked again by Thanos. There's a close-up shot of him on the battlefield with the top of his shield sliced off and he's covered in blood and dust and he pushes himself up off the ground. I 100% expected Captain Marvel to fly in and help him up.
(Aside: I think the movie largely misused and wasted Captain Marvel. Aside from the early scenes where she puts herself out as the decisive difference and her interaction with Thor she's essentially absent from the film. I know the film was supposed to be about the (original) Avengers and all that but she's in there to fight and she should have been paired with Cap at least once.)
So Cap has fought his fights and when all is said and done he still doesn't belong in this place and time. He takes the chance to finally experience the romance he missed out on by sacrificing himself in the first place. It's almost a neat dual to Tony's story, as Tony has to sacrifice the romance he's found. Unfortunately, for me to believe this happens the way it seems to in the movie requires... well, one more good thing first.
The final thing I think is worth calling to attention is how Black Widow is handled. All along I gave credit to the movies for not sexualizing the character. Both as the only female character among a bunch of male Avengers and as a character portrayed by a highly conventionally attractive actress, Black Widow would seem to be one for falling into bed with someone. Instead, she doesn't. She becomes Cap's best buddy - a real friend in a relationship whose problems are never about attraction, but rather about friendship and loyalty. Widow sacrifices herself in this movie as someone beloved - Barton/Hawkeye clearly loves her and likely there is a past story there. But he has a family and he's devoted to them. There's never a moment between Widow and anyone else where she's using her appearance to get what she wants. (OK there's that memorable "I'm conducting an interrogation here" line, but that's pure set-up.) There's a lot you can rightly criticize in the MCU about how it has mis-handled its female characters; I want to give credit for this one. I particularly liked the dialog, which is all about the two of them interacting, not about "oh I have to do this noble thing because Cosmic Reasons." She flat-out tells him "let me go" which is both a nice double-meaning line and an entire story in itself.
OK, so what about all of that... other stuff.
First, we have a credibility problem. I don't think this film actually believes anything it says. There is a moment where The Ancient One explains to us (through Bruce Banner) how time travel is going to work. You get to split realities, not change the future by messing with the past. Uh, OK. Sure. So please explain to me why (how) Gamora lives and Black Widow doesn't. We get this emotional bit where Banner tells us he tried to use the un-snap to bring her back and couldn't. So? Go back in time and get her. Presto. Since you're not actually changing the future this way... come on.
Also, please explain to me how Thanos comes through the gate? Never mind a giant frelling army space navy whatever. The movie has carefully told us how hard this is and how it's necessary to conserve Pym particles and so everyone only gets one shot (well OK Cap and Iron Man cheat but even then they have to steal more particles from the past). But suddenly Evil Nebula can flip a few switches and bring through a Chitauri invasion force? Uh... no.
I won't even go into how ... something is able to detect that something (Captain Marvel) has entered the upper atmosphere but somehow missed the GIANT FRELLING SPACESHIP that suddenly appeared and started bombing Avengers HQ. Yeah, sure.
Then Captain America just gets to go back and ... what? How does returning the stones to the past fix anything? If you've already split reality aren't you just splitting it again? Like, you have Reality 1 (ours) then you steal a stone and create Reality 2. Then you return the stone somehow to Reality 2 (don't ask me how you timetravel to Reality 2 rather than Reality 1 because Quantum Realm-ium solves that problem) but by the rules you just told us returning the stone re-splits that reality so now you have Reality 3 and that doesn't even seem vaguely like a solution.
However, I think you have to believe that version because the alternative is you believe Cap went back and took over Peggy Carter's life. He (our Steve Rogers) knows that she moved on after 1940s Steve Rogers disappeared and had her own life/family. Either he splits her timeline, creating Reality 4 in which he lives with her, or he destroys her family by making it never exist since she stays with him. Either you believe Cap did the most un-Cap-like thing ever or you believe that returning the stones is an entire bullshit exercise that he can't/doesn't actually do if the movie-universe rules are what we've been told they are.
In addition, if you believe that time-traveling Cap exists in the same reality as Endgame-start Cap then you have to believe that for all of this time there have been two Captain Americas and one of them just sat back and let Hydra and Segovia and all of that happen. Basically, you'd have to believe he sacrificed hundreds or thousands of preventable deaths for his own personal enjoyment. I don't buy that for a second, not least of all because the Marvel universe, including the MCU, has been clear about how Peggy Carter kept herself in the game and came back when it was clear there was a need her skills matched. Are we expected to believe that being with Steve Rogers somehow deterred her from doing that, or that she did it but he stayed at home... like, watching TV or something?
This confusion about how "repairing" time works also calls into question how/where/whether Gamora still exists in Reality 1. We don't have any direct evidence for it, but that's certainly the implication of the scenes inside the (as)Guardian ship where they appear to be using some kind of computer program to search for her. I also can't figure out how she's around and Loki isn't. Because Loki sure as hell ported out during the screw-up in Reality 2. So maybe he only exists in that reality and not our Reality 1?
Returning to the stones for a moment, how does Cap actually RETURN some of the stones? Like, how do you return the Soul Stone? Does the stone go back to being some amorphous soul-swapping mass? How? Does Cap go to Asgard (how?) and re-inject a stone (which is now a solid object) into Jane Foster? The movie has spent a good deal of Thor's and Rocket's dialog on this peculiarity and how Rocket has to sneak up on her with a weird prong-y thing. I can't imagine Cap asking politely to inject a solid rock into her... something.
And while I'm at it, how many people here remember the fundamental explanation of what the Infinity Stones are in the MCU? Let me help you - as The Collector and others have told us, they are what _creates_ our reality. Not a trivial thing. So if you (Thanos) destroy that which creates reality... why is reality still here?
This whole mess reminds me of the disturbing lack of sense that pervades Thanos's original plan in the first half of this movie. Thanos, who ought to be the Biggest Bad Ever has the sense of a doofus who took like one intro Freshman Economics course and mostly didn't pay attention during it. His new plan is just "kill everyone" because that will prevent anyone ever remembering how things were so he can then create a new universe that will behave exactly the same way as the current one. Except somehow not.
This entire thing is so headache-inducingly wrong as to distract me from the good parts of the movie.
Likewise, there's an obvious moment in the movie where the Russos are saying "look how awesome our women are" that only serves to highlight how badly they've been treated in every other movie. Giving them one sweeping relay-race scene in this movie doesn't make up for that. Yes, Marvel, you have an amazing stable of characters to draw from, not to mention the ones you haven't touched. Why have you done so poorly by them in that case?
I felt that so much during the brief exchange between Scarlet Witch and Thanos where she says "You took everything from me" and he says "I don't even know who you are". Well, yes. That's the fault of the scriptwriters and the Russos right there. A more successful moment is the Thor-Frigga scene where she backhanded compliments him for coming to the smartest person on Asgard for help. The movie appears to make clear that she's aware of her impending death, about which she seems totally calm. This foreshadows Pepper's last scene with Tony.
I can't let this go without throwing at least one spitball at how badly they botched the Banner/Hulk story. This thing has been a thread through a couple movies and the disappearance of the Hulk after his initial defeat at Thanos's hands was a big point in the previous movie. Now we start this movie and HEY PRESTO everything is better! No more neuroses, no more anger, just one happy two-spirit being. I believe Banner/Hulk could get here, but having it happen entirely offscreen is terrible.
Less terrible, but still terrible, is how the Asgardians are treated. Apparently they somehow go to Earth after Thanos trashes their ship and then snaps half the survivors out of existence. Because ... reasons. Apparently of all the other planets none were closer/suitable? And apparently this entire society of warriors has transformed into a semi-agricultural fishing... village? I can't even imagine how this happens. Yes, I know that Thor had ordered a "return" to Earth but that was before Thanos, which apparently made no difference to the plan. The entire point of this seems to be to have Thor take over the PTSD role from Tony and Banner, along with a terrible fat suit and some non-trivial fat shaming. I thought the entire bit was cringe-worthy and should have been handled vastly differently.
Bottom line: as an emotional experience, this movie has several things to recommend it. As a movie you want to be the peak of the longest arc in American movie history it falls massively short.