A victory
lap is the perfect description of Avengers:
Endgame. It is a good
enough story on its own, but is not afraid to tack on much
earned nostalgia. If Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
garnered a Best Picture Oscar in part because it was the culmination
of a gorgeously executed triology, I don't see why the same logic
wouldn't apply to Avengers: Endgame
which is the perfect
culmination of ten years and
twenty-two movies of Marvel storytelling
Leaving off
where Avengers: Infinity War and
Ant-Man and the Wasp ended,
half the life in the universe has
been snapped out of existence by Thanos and his Inifinity Guantlet.
The Avengers not snapped out
of existence conveniently include the original assembly: Iron Man,
Captain America, Thor, Black Widow, The Hulk, and Hawkeye. Captain
Marvel shows up almost immediately after and they all get in a
spaceship and track down Thanos. Unfortunately by the time they get
to him, he has already destroyed the Infinity Stones. It's over. What
happened cannot be fixed.
Then
the movie jumps five years. It is a ballsy move and cements a feeling
of reality over the events of Avengers: Infinity War.
Usually comic book movies don't have dramatically acted scenes, but
this one contains a particularly good bit of acting by Robert Downey
Jr, as Tony Stark/Tony Stark, who excoriates Chris Evans, Steve
Rogers/Captain America, decision several movies ago in Captain
America: Civil War which broke
up the Avengers and made Thanos harder to stop.
There
is a catch of course as there must be. It comes in the form of
Ant-Man who was stuck in the quantum realm when the
Snappening happened and comes back five years later. (There is an
emotional scene where Paul Rudd, Scott Lang/Ant-Man, finds his name
on a memorial for those who died during the Snappening and when he
reunites with his daughter.) Scott shows up at the Avengers
headquarters with an idea that has to do with time-travel through the
quantum realm. Much exposition is needed in this movie and quite a
bit of it is people explaining things to Ant-Man who hasn't been
around in the last five years. Most of it is quite funny.
Alot
of this is quite funny. Some characters' arcs are rather dramatic like Iron Man, Captain America, Hawkeye, and Black Widow. But other characters are firmly in the camp of comic relief. Two characters that have completely hit their
stride are Hulk, who is now Professor Hulk, a big, green and unangry
Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo). Then there is Thor. What happened to him over the past five years is the
stuff of comedic legends.
The
question here
isn't if Avengers: Endgame
will reverse the outcome of Infinity War.
We know it must simply due to sheer amount of marketable product that
was snapped out of existence. The question is whether
how this is accomplished is too predictable or too confusing. It
isn't predictable and it generally makes sense (in a comic book
science sort of way). A few
times in the movie I was sitting there wondering how they were going
to accomplish what they had set out to do and then how they did was
quite satisfying.
Without
giving away too much of the plot, the Avengers actually visit
previous movies. Three in particular: The Avengers, The
Dark World, and The Guardians of the Galaxy.
The team splits up into groups to go back in time and retrieve what
they need from those films. It is always when you have many full
formed characters and then mix and match teams so people who have not
really met or interacted before are doing so for the first time.
Thor's interactions with the Guardians of the Galaxy is great in
particular. Captain American fights himself and that is satisfying
too. There is a lot of good stuff all over the place here. One
particular moment, where Captain America finds himself standing alone
in front of an evil army, and the moment right after, garnered cheers
from the audience that I was in. I felt like cheering too. I really like these guys.
Following
the example of other great culmination of movies, the last hour of
Avengers: End Game has
a lot of goodbyes in it. I believe the movie earned these moments. I
look forward to the next twenty films.
