This Avengers Endgame Review is not 100% positive. You has been warned. So Avengers Endgame has landed. There will be spoilers ahead. But I’m guessing most hardcore fans like me have seen it at least once.
I’m going to watch it again this week, no doubt. After much anticipation, I watched it weekend gone. The movie is AWESOME. Don’t get me wrong. For a superhero blockbuster, it gets many things right. There are multiple call outs to the fans. I left the cinema with an initial distinct feeling of satisfaction in so many parts of the movie. Cap lifting Mjolnir, Hulk using the gauntlet and damaging his arm [Maestro is coming], Captain Marvel destroying Thanos’s ship. That sequence with Cap and his shield.
Is it better than Avengers Infinity War?
No, it is not. I’m sorry to say. We have a ton of questions that many other fans and sites are asking but here are nine problems with Avengers Endgame
1. Captain Marvel
They messed up on Danvers. After all the fanfare and how she will have a significant role to play in the MCU and the fight against Thanos, Captain Marvel is hardly in the movie! She does kick butt, and she does have some significant roles throughout the film but its all fleeting. Zipping in and out and flying off to deal with intergalactic issues. One minute she’s there and then she’s not… D’oh! Dialogue is limited. Would have loved to have seen her interact with Captain America and Ironman. As loathe as I am to comment on someone’s appearance I didn’t like the haircut!
Despite how prominently she is on all the trailers, the movie’s marketing, the end of her movie where she meets the Avengers, Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers is absent from most of the meaty parts of Endgame. When Captain Marvel is there, she’s awkwardly inserted into scenes and underutilised as a character and a hero.
Danvers appears four times in Endgame. She arrives in the beginning, out of nowhere with no explanation to rescue Stark and Nebula, who are adrift in space. Following some banter and interaction with the team, she then assists with the early assault on Thanos. Then she kind of doesn’t show up, and about twelve minutes or so later, she appears in a random conference call with Black Widow and odd hair cut. Wait. What? She reports to Natasha that she won’t be around Earth for a while, as she’s helping other planets. Huh? What about Earth? What about bringing all the people back? She again enters the film’s climactic final battle halfway through, a ringer who faces down Thanos before he is finally defeated.
2. Thor
What the heck did they do to Thor? After establishing himself as a significant powerhouse especially in Infinity War, they turn him into this? The movie’s comic relief? Seriously not cool! Ok, we get hes lost a lot. Father, mother, brother, friends, confidantes etc. But the pot belly? Why would you do that Marvel?
We get its meant to be funny, its meant to be relatively silly and harmless but it was beaten to death to the point where it became uncomfortable and awkward, and you just think why? Thor’s PTSD should not have been dealt that way.
3. Hulk / Professor Hulk / Banner
Ok. I liked Professor Hulk. He’s got a few significant roles in the movie. Retrieving the time stone, undoing the snap with the new gauntlet and recovered stones. Building the time machine etc. Lot more dialogue, some of it funny. There’s significant call out to fans when he keeps Avengers Base upon his shoulders. Lots of cool moments and lots of screen time and dialogue.
However.
In Infinity War he got his ass handed to him by Thanos. Where was the Epic beatdown of Hulk the Gladiator taking sweet retribution by taking Thanos down? I liked Hipster Hulk, but I wanted to see Hulk vs Thanos round Two.
4. Focusing on the Original Avengers
One of the things that made Infinity War a tense and brilliant movie was the sense of urgency. The feeling of unease you had as Thanos got closer to getting all the stones. This tension was further increased with all the different heroes interacting and trying to stop Thanos getting said stones.
Characters, like Black Panther, Dr Strange, Spider-Man whom we all knew were coming back have concise cameo roles in Endgame at the end in the battle scene. Remember Starlord messing up? Panther and Cap entering the fray? Wanda and Vision’s last stand?
The Scarlet Witch at least gets someone on one battle time with Thanos, but I wanted all the Avengers to have an epic battle with Thanos. Although 3 hours run time the main focus on the original six and especially Iron Man and Cap left me a little empty.
5. Girl Power
Endgame used Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel as some mascot for a faux “girl power” sequence. Carol goes after Thanos and is flanked by every single female hero that’s still alive.
Okoye, Mantis, Rescue, Nebula, Wasp, Scarlet Witch, Valkyrie, a veritable who’s who of MCU female heroes. And they all just appeared no matter where they physically happened to be in the scene just moments earlier. While its a super cool moment its also a super cheesy moment. It could not get cheesier and again it is fleeting, a small battle sequence that’s over before it started and makes you wonder what the point in wasting such an epic moment was.
6. The whole Time Travel thing has more holes than Swiss Cheese!
Especially at the end with Cap going back to return the stones and coming back as an old man. Where did Loki go after taking the Tesseract and what happens to past Gamora? Past Nebula being killed by Future Nebula. Future Cap vs Past Cap. Spidey and Ned not having aged but the rest of the class did or didn’t? MJ? It makes no sense Captain.
Does Infinity War happen now that past Thanos bites it? How does Thanos’s ship get to the future? What about his army? Is Stark that smart that he figured out Time Travel overnight? Que? How did Cap return the Soul Stone, did he shake hands with Skull and say here you go, buddy? How come normal humans can hold all manner of Infinity Stones in their hands? Soooo many plot holes dude! Why does this movie completely ignore the butterfly effect?
7. Iron-Man landing the killer blow.
Thanos finally losing could have been done in so many ways. The whole team in one final epic battle. Captain Marvel taking him out, Hulk smashing the crap out of Thanos in Hulk Rage. Cap one on one with Thanos. Thor taking on the Iron Gauntlet. But it was Stark, which to me seemed a bit of a cop-out. We get he’s the central star and he’s not coming back because his contract is done. But well it was just a bit of a dull ending.
8. The fight scenes.
Referring back to my point earlier about the tension in Infinity War. The only time I felt the pressure in Endgame is when past Thanos realises that there are two Nebulas and discovers the Avengers plan. Yes, the dialogue was more prominent and it was more character driven. But its a Superhero movie for goodness sake. It is about the Dishoom, Dishoom. The epic climatic battle scene while cool could have been so much more. There was not a single hero vs hero fight. Marvel without hero vs hero fights is not Marvel. Ok I know there was Cap vs Cap, but that’s was just silly. Winter Soldier, Civil War and Infinity War were awesome because of the Russo’s focus on hero vs hero fights. Cap vs Panther, Winter Soldier vs Black Widow, Starlord vs Spider-Man
9. Thanos
In Infinity War, Thanos established himself as the ultimate superhero movie villain. The ultimate Marvel Cinematic Universe baddie. The big bad. In Endgame in the opening sequence he seems pitiful and weak. A mewling, whining shadow of the guy in Infinity. Past Thanos does not seem as menacing or even has that much dialogue. Such great bad guy was dispatched with too much ease. Twice. I wanted to see Thanos duke it out with the Avengers again a bit more. Everyone had so much reason to personally want to kick his butt. Hulk, Thor, Drax, Nebula, Cap, Iron Man, Starlord, Wanda [who as mentioned did get a return bout]. I really wanted to see the same battle intensity from Infinity War and this time it was just missing and its because Thanos was a wuss. No epic dialogue , remember this “Dread it. Run from it. Destiny arrives all the same.” That is one of THE best lines from a movie.
Or other classics like
“You have my respect, Stark. When I’m done, half of humanity will still be alive. I hope they remember you.”
―Thanos to Iron Man
“You should have gone for the head.”
―Thanos to Thor
“With all six Stones, I could simply snap my fingers. They would all cease to exist. I call that… mercy.”
“And then what?”
“I finally rest. And watch the sun rise on a grateful universe. The hardest choices require the strongest wills.”
Endgame has some classics also to be fair
“You could not live with your own failure. And where did that bring you? Back to me.”
―Thanos
“Look at the world around you. Is it not more peaceful?. Avengers, let’s finish this..”
―Thanos
“The work is done. I won. What I’m about to do… I’m gonna enjoy it. Very, very much.”
―Thanos
Many of Avengers Endgame theories going round before the movie were pretty accurate but there was a ton of surprises. Thanos beheaded in the first 15 minutes. Natasha dieing. Lots of guest appearances from previous characters. Falcon becoming Captain America. On your left when the heroes come back and Cap realises all is not lost. Cap’s shield breaking. Dr Strange and one finger. Spidey’s instant-kill mode, T’challa remembering Clint’s name, a call-back to that elevator scene from The Winter Soldier, cap saying “Hail, Hydra”. The whole opening sequence is basically a resounding This isn’t the movie you thought it’d be buster. The emphasis on family was ever present and redemption. Thor and his mum on the day she died was sad and lovely. Tony sharing an unexpectedly candid elevator ride with his poppa in 1970. Korg and Fortnite! [The Marvel Fortnite partnership extending further than Fornite]. The final shot of Steve and Peggy dancing. The irony of Cap saying no do overs and no mistakes when thats exactly what they are doing and make countless mistakes! The use of the Quantum Realm was sweet and I’m really glad Ant-Man played such a big role. Not using Wasp more was a missed opportunity.
So, to my Endgame. It is still an excellent movie. I will watch it countless times. But Infinity War is all-time great; Endgame just missed too many tricks! The Avengers Endgame trailer promised so much but just missed the spot. If you think about Endgame’s use of time travel for a little bit, the ending starts to sour just a little bit. Endgame uses a theory of time travel that’s pretty different from that of most other movies, which posit that changing the past also changes the future. Endgame says that if you change the past, you create a new parallel universe that branches off from the moment you changed said past — but when you travel into the future, you return to your original future, not the new one created by the changes you made in the past.
How this affects Marvel’s Phase 4 no one knows. Will Kang ever show up?
Will there be more Avengers movies? I’m not that excited about Eternals. Never liked them in the comics. What the Black Panther, Dr strange, Black Widow movies be about and how will they fit in. when will the Fantastic Four and X-Men join the MCU.