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"Avengers: Endgame" - Post-Viewing Thoughts and Reflections
So I didn't initially plan to take five days to reflect on my thoughts, but it was a three hour film that served as a de-facto "season finale" for a major film franchise... and frankly I've been busy.
Suffice to say, I really, really liked it - but I still have some complicated thoughts about how it all went down... (You can read my pre-viewing speculation here.)
(SPOILERS for AVENGERS: ENDGAME under the cut)
So just getting this out of the way now - my fleeting half-joke about wanting a Thor shirtless scene for thirst reasons was definitely a monkey's paw situation. That said, the heavy tie-ins and homages to Thor: Ragnarok were some of my favorite parts of this whole film. And surprisingly, the several callbacks to Thor: The Dark World worked for me too (honestly, they worked more than that movie itself actually did). The fact that they got back Natalie Portman for ADR and she got a co-star credit is hilarious (Get that cash!). I think the development at the end with Valkyrie wasn't set up as well as it could have been, but I appreciated the sentiment behind it and what it sets up for the future of the Asgardian characters in the MCU. I think the way Thor's arc ultimately went was among the most successful, and I was a big fan of what Hemsworth did with the character in this movie (yes even the Fortnite-bingeing alcoholism and weight-gain). I'm crossing my fingers that he shows up in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 whenever that finally gets released, but in general I hope we see a lot more of that character in the future. His arc may be 'complete' in some sense, but I feel like he still has a fair amount of room to grow. I feel like Hemsworth agrees with me, since I'm seeing chatter that he's re-upped his contract with Marvel.
This will probably be a very unpopular opinion, but I'm actually pretty okay with what they did with Black Widow's character. That said, I feel like the whole "dying to save Hawkeye" angle doesn't land particularly well no matter how you look at it (ba dum tish), and though I think that double act works and I wish the series had invested more time in that friendship than that Natasha-Bruce romance that I think we can all acknowledge now was a failure. (I also really love the Thor-Bruce friendship stuff in this movie). I'm self-aware enough to admit that part of my reception to this is colored by my general dislike of Scarlett Johansson as a person and ambivalence as a performer. I do think she was really good in this movie though, and where they ultimately went with her will (hopefully) make the Black Widow prequel movie more interesting to watch with that context. I went into this movie feeling lukewarm about Hawkeye and nothing in this movie really challenged that too much aside from that whole sequence on Vormir, so there's that too I guess.
I'm kind of annoyed, especially considering how long the runtime was, that we saw Bruce and the Hulk's character arc resolved offscreen during the five year time jump (and as a result he kind of took a backseat to the other five Avengers). He comes out of this movie intact, so I'm curious to see what Ruffalo's role in this franchise will be moving forward. I knew that the rumor of Carol Danvers dying 20 minutes into the movie were complete bullshit, but I was surprised at how underutilized she was overall considering how this film was marketed (though it makes sense if production of Captain Marvel overlapped with this). I was surprised they brought Tilda Swinton back at all considering all the shit tied up with that character, but the scene worked surprisingly well.
One of the character arcs I'm most pleased about is Nebula. It's only when you contrast her with her pre-Guardians Vol. 1 self that you realize how much that character has changed over the course of these movies, and how subtle that transformation has been. Timeline headaches aside (more on that later) the scene where Nebula has to shoot her past self is one of the high points of the film, as are virtually every scene she's in. That said, while Gamora and Thanos also have an ample presence in this movie, they don't bring anywhere near the level of gravitas they had in Infinity War and acted more like plot devices than characters with developing arcs. A lot of this has to do with the fact that the "modern day" incarnations of those characters are dead, so we're left with the 2014 versions as proxy, which all feels less satisfying than the single scene near the beginning when the Avengers confront Thanos in his retirement.
A character I was not expecting to be the breakout star of this film was Ant-Man. Paul Rudd is great, and I genuinely enjoyed both of his films, but he absolutely killed it in this movie. I loved every beat of his storyline and every scene he was in. The leaked casting call for an older version of his daughter last year kind of foreshadowed the time jump and what they ultimately did, but it didn't detract from my enjoyment of that element at all. The fact that he hadn't spent the past year in a depressing post-snap world also helped lift the movie tonally during that portion of the story. This, combined with the unresolved story elements from Ant-Man and the Wasp, really make me hyped for a third movie with that set of characters.
So now we come to Iron Man. I think the way his arc ultimately resolved was extremely satisfying and true to the character. I'm not gonna lie, I spent a good portion of the movie worried that they were going to retcon his daughter out of existence, and I'm glad they didn't go that route. (But, honestly, not expunging those five years from the timeline is going to be a major headache for virtually every film set after it moving forward). I really loved the story decision to have him talk to his dad in the past, and I really liked how his character was vindicated in a major way after everything that went down in Civil War (I was #TeamIronMan). Honestly, all of his scenes with Steve were excellent and I'm glad we got a lot of material with them together in their swan songs.
Oh Steve Rogers. I get why they gave him that ending. Heck, I guessed that was the route they were going to go as soon as he saw Peggy during his trip to the 1970s. That said, and while I enjoyed it immensely from the standpoint of character arc and just from watching that final dance scene, I can't help but be extremely annoyed by how slopping the execution was in terms of logistics. The movie had already blown its wad on all the timeline stuff with the Thanos and Nebula stuff in the final act, but the Captain America of it all really highlighted how much of a mess their time travel logic had become. This is especially frustrating since the movie had gone to such great pains to make sure the time travel stuff had a logic to it that followed a specific set of rules. Supposedly there's more to the time shenanigans in meta text, but it's ultimately frustrated it wasn't either included in the movie or done in a way where such explanations weren't necessary. I suspect this will be a sticking point with a lot of people for YEARS after this movie, so I'm gonna try to let it go for now. I was right that the solution to what happened in Infinity War wasn't gonna be as complicated as theories on Reddit suggested, but man are they gonna be an asset in untangling these timeline issues.
As far as Endgame's place in my overall view of the MCU, it's a pretty bright one. It's easily my favorite of the Avengers movies (My appraisal of Infinity War in the aftermath of seeing Endgame hasn't improved as much as I'd hoped). I probably enjoyed it as a viewer less than I enjoyed Ant-Man and the Wasp and Captain Marvel, but I think Endgame is much more narratively satisfying more me than either of those. Ranking the films is an overdone exercise that I know there are a million think-pieces on, but putting all that aside, I can say with a fair amount of certainty that it doesn't outrank my current top four (Black Panther, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Thor: Ragnarok, and Spider-Man: Homecoming) but I could easily see it landing it fifth place. Then again, The Last Jedi didn't settle into my number two spot of Star Wars films until a couple of months after it's release, and I'm frankly still sorting out how I'd rank Captain Marvel two months after seeing it.
So, Endgame. 5 Stars. Will watch again, but probably not until it's streaming on Disney+. Now I just want to watch Spider-Man: Far From Home and have it heal my soul.
Suffice to say, I really, really liked it - but I still have some complicated thoughts about how it all went down... (You can read my pre-viewing speculation here.)
(SPOILERS for AVENGERS: ENDGAME under the cut)
So just getting this out of the way now - my fleeting half-joke about wanting a Thor shirtless scene for thirst reasons was definitely a monkey's paw situation. That said, the heavy tie-ins and homages to Thor: Ragnarok were some of my favorite parts of this whole film. And surprisingly, the several callbacks to Thor: The Dark World worked for me too (honestly, they worked more than that movie itself actually did). The fact that they got back Natalie Portman for ADR and she got a co-star credit is hilarious (Get that cash!). I think the development at the end with Valkyrie wasn't set up as well as it could have been, but I appreciated the sentiment behind it and what it sets up for the future of the Asgardian characters in the MCU. I think the way Thor's arc ultimately went was among the most successful, and I was a big fan of what Hemsworth did with the character in this movie (yes even the Fortnite-bingeing alcoholism and weight-gain). I'm crossing my fingers that he shows up in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 whenever that finally gets released, but in general I hope we see a lot more of that character in the future. His arc may be 'complete' in some sense, but I feel like he still has a fair amount of room to grow. I feel like Hemsworth agrees with me, since I'm seeing chatter that he's re-upped his contract with Marvel.
This will probably be a very unpopular opinion, but I'm actually pretty okay with what they did with Black Widow's character. That said, I feel like the whole "dying to save Hawkeye" angle doesn't land particularly well no matter how you look at it (ba dum tish), and though I think that double act works and I wish the series had invested more time in that friendship than that Natasha-Bruce romance that I think we can all acknowledge now was a failure. (I also really love the Thor-Bruce friendship stuff in this movie). I'm self-aware enough to admit that part of my reception to this is colored by my general dislike of Scarlett Johansson as a person and ambivalence as a performer. I do think she was really good in this movie though, and where they ultimately went with her will (hopefully) make the Black Widow prequel movie more interesting to watch with that context. I went into this movie feeling lukewarm about Hawkeye and nothing in this movie really challenged that too much aside from that whole sequence on Vormir, so there's that too I guess.
I'm kind of annoyed, especially considering how long the runtime was, that we saw Bruce and the Hulk's character arc resolved offscreen during the five year time jump (and as a result he kind of took a backseat to the other five Avengers). He comes out of this movie intact, so I'm curious to see what Ruffalo's role in this franchise will be moving forward. I knew that the rumor of Carol Danvers dying 20 minutes into the movie were complete bullshit, but I was surprised at how underutilized she was overall considering how this film was marketed (though it makes sense if production of Captain Marvel overlapped with this). I was surprised they brought Tilda Swinton back at all considering all the shit tied up with that character, but the scene worked surprisingly well.
One of the character arcs I'm most pleased about is Nebula. It's only when you contrast her with her pre-Guardians Vol. 1 self that you realize how much that character has changed over the course of these movies, and how subtle that transformation has been. Timeline headaches aside (more on that later) the scene where Nebula has to shoot her past self is one of the high points of the film, as are virtually every scene she's in. That said, while Gamora and Thanos also have an ample presence in this movie, they don't bring anywhere near the level of gravitas they had in Infinity War and acted more like plot devices than characters with developing arcs. A lot of this has to do with the fact that the "modern day" incarnations of those characters are dead, so we're left with the 2014 versions as proxy, which all feels less satisfying than the single scene near the beginning when the Avengers confront Thanos in his retirement.
A character I was not expecting to be the breakout star of this film was Ant-Man. Paul Rudd is great, and I genuinely enjoyed both of his films, but he absolutely killed it in this movie. I loved every beat of his storyline and every scene he was in. The leaked casting call for an older version of his daughter last year kind of foreshadowed the time jump and what they ultimately did, but it didn't detract from my enjoyment of that element at all. The fact that he hadn't spent the past year in a depressing post-snap world also helped lift the movie tonally during that portion of the story. This, combined with the unresolved story elements from Ant-Man and the Wasp, really make me hyped for a third movie with that set of characters.
So now we come to Iron Man. I think the way his arc ultimately resolved was extremely satisfying and true to the character. I'm not gonna lie, I spent a good portion of the movie worried that they were going to retcon his daughter out of existence, and I'm glad they didn't go that route. (But, honestly, not expunging those five years from the timeline is going to be a major headache for virtually every film set after it moving forward). I really loved the story decision to have him talk to his dad in the past, and I really liked how his character was vindicated in a major way after everything that went down in Civil War (I was #TeamIronMan). Honestly, all of his scenes with Steve were excellent and I'm glad we got a lot of material with them together in their swan songs.
Oh Steve Rogers. I get why they gave him that ending. Heck, I guessed that was the route they were going to go as soon as he saw Peggy during his trip to the 1970s. That said, and while I enjoyed it immensely from the standpoint of character arc and just from watching that final dance scene, I can't help but be extremely annoyed by how slopping the execution was in terms of logistics. The movie had already blown its wad on all the timeline stuff with the Thanos and Nebula stuff in the final act, but the Captain America of it all really highlighted how much of a mess their time travel logic had become. This is especially frustrating since the movie had gone to such great pains to make sure the time travel stuff had a logic to it that followed a specific set of rules. Supposedly there's more to the time shenanigans in meta text, but it's ultimately frustrated it wasn't either included in the movie or done in a way where such explanations weren't necessary. I suspect this will be a sticking point with a lot of people for YEARS after this movie, so I'm gonna try to let it go for now. I was right that the solution to what happened in Infinity War wasn't gonna be as complicated as theories on Reddit suggested, but man are they gonna be an asset in untangling these timeline issues.
As far as Endgame's place in my overall view of the MCU, it's a pretty bright one. It's easily my favorite of the Avengers movies (My appraisal of Infinity War in the aftermath of seeing Endgame hasn't improved as much as I'd hoped). I probably enjoyed it as a viewer less than I enjoyed Ant-Man and the Wasp and Captain Marvel, but I think Endgame is much more narratively satisfying more me than either of those. Ranking the films is an overdone exercise that I know there are a million think-pieces on, but putting all that aside, I can say with a fair amount of certainty that it doesn't outrank my current top four (Black Panther, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Thor: Ragnarok, and Spider-Man: Homecoming) but I could easily see it landing it fifth place. Then again, The Last Jedi didn't settle into my number two spot of Star Wars films until a couple of months after it's release, and I'm frankly still sorting out how I'd rank Captain Marvel two months after seeing it.
So, Endgame. 5 Stars. Will watch again, but probably not until it's streaming on Disney+. Now I just want to watch Spider-Man: Far From Home and have it heal my soul.