So dared the crowds and the packed parking lots to see Avengers: Endgame. Drove over to the (very close) theater Thursday at Midnight… they had front row seats open on six screens… but between all those people plus the 9pm (and earlier) shows, there wasn’t a parking spot to be had (and it was raining). So I went back at 10am the following day and suffered an almost full screen… on a Friday where good little boys and girls are at work (I suspect a lot of people called in sick *cough*). Anyhow, finally did get to to see this 11 year culmination of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and that’s kind of an accomplishment (getting the seat or making the movie, take your pick).
So Endgame is the direct sequel to Infinity War and attempts to wrangle and finagle the catastrophic ending of that film. And if you thought the trailers were a bit of a bummer, that’d be a pretty accurate description of a vast swath of this flick. And I give the movie a ton of credit for that… it takes serious the repercussions of The Snap. It wallows in guilt and depression in a realistic, human, and adult way. This is the most interesting thing about the film… this is a big event Marvel Cinematic Universe film that takes itself and its storyline grimly seriously. It’s confident in itself, its storytelling, its history, and your ability to sit through a lot of dramatic storytelling. It has jokes and action, but it doesn’t have to break the mood constantly to make sure the audience is having a good time.
So the film is told in three basic parts… without going into spoilers, it’s the aftermath of the snap, a kind of heist (hi Ant-Man), and a big walloping action set piece that basically brings all the toys out to play. The sheer volume of eleven years and twenty-one earlier movies is on display in this flick which is both part celebration of all that screen time and an excuse to mash all the toys together in a great big virtual sandbox. If nothing else, this movie has a casting budget bigger than most movies (and you thought they crammed a lot of names into Infinity War…). Good, bad, or indifferent to the franchise in general, you have to respect the sheer traffic control of this many movie stars with this much history in a single film.
And, by the way, it’s a film that doesn’t stop to help the audience who hasn’t been paying attention. There’s so much knowledge you have to bring into this movie to understand vast amounts of it. I mean, this is a movie that expects you to remember the events of Thor: The Dark World! Or, heck, to have seen Ant-Man and the Wasp. That’s a movie that made a fifth of what the last Avengers movie made… and you have to have seen that movie’s post credit scene too. And you have to have seen Captain Marvel and its post credit scene since her appearance is not at all otherwise explained. In some respects, this could be seen as bad film-making… or as sheer film-making virtuosity. That’s a lot of balls to keep juggling at once and this movie doesn’t drop a thing.
And, yes, this can be a problem since this movie’s second act is packed with references to the earlier movies. I’ve seen ’em all at least once and there are points in the crazily convoluted story that I started to get lost. I can’t imagine what the average movie goer is going to think of the complex machinations of this very creative story. That said… they do some very inventive stuff here… but there’s part of me that felt it got a little flabby (it’s a three hour movie) and that it wasn’t as peppy and adventurously twisty as I think they were going for. Still quite fun… just felt like there was a missed opportunity for more heist-like antics. I suspect it might play better on second viewing though.
A lot of this movie’s references to the past films can be seen as pure fan-service but far more of it is based on earned character moments. This is a film that knows its characters and it gives them the screen time necessary to tell a real, adult story with actual human emotions. I was very impressed at the maturity and non-slam-bang dramatics in the story (and the slam bang stuff was pretty good too).
Avengers: Endgame is a love letter to itself and to the fans who have been keeping up with this crazy for eleven years. It pretty much nails everything it sets out to do and it does it with an alacrity and sense of self that’s honestly impressive for a great big noisy blockbuster. In that the film treats itself serious, lets itself breath, and generously gives the actors real dialog before (and during) the big smash-em-up moments is an achievement to Marvel and hopefully a sign of things to come.
Score: 88