Avengers: Endgame Review

Well, after three viewings, I think I'm finally ready to share my thoughts on Avengers: Endgame.

This has got to be the most secretive film in any franchise that's ever existed. I can't think of one other movie where the directors withheld something as basic as its title for nine months and then wrote a public letter to fans right before its release asking them not to spoil it. I'm kind of surprised the Russo brothers didn't borrow a page from Alfred Hitchcock and bar people from entering the theaters once the showings began while they were at it.

One reason for all this secrecy could be that the MCU is one of the few adapted film franchises that doesn't directly follow its source material, so its plots actually CAN be spoiled, and also because Endgame throws so many narrative curveballs that no one could have predicted. Seriously, the first ten minutes alone had me at a loss. So with that said, I'm going to try to avoid spoilers.

First of all, I have to admit that I liked Endgame slightly less than Infinity War. It's a lot more emotional and exhilarating, but its overall plot isn't as solid. Four of the core Avengers go through major changes off camera early in the film, but only two of those changes really serve any purpose to the story beyond a visual gag. Thanos is far less complex this time around, and this movie (while it's probably earned the right to) leans way more on the previous MCU films in order to tell its story than Infinity War did.

It actually took all three of my viewings to decide that I really was happy with Endgame. I saw Infinity War five times in theaters because I loved it so much the first time that I wanted to keep seeing it over and over again. And that movie killed my favorite character before the title even came up.

And then of course, there's the time travel aspect of Endgame.

I don't think that's a spoiler for anyone. Set photos hinting at it were leaked a year ago around the same time that Infinity War first came out. As the internet guessed from those photos, the Avengers' plan in Endgame is to go back to several points in the past, including to New York City at the time of Loki's Chitauri invasion, and collect the Infinity Stones so they can undo Thanos's snap with their own Infinity Gauntlet. We get some exposition about how time travel works in this universe, and I think the gist is that changing your past just creates alternate branching timelines instead of changing your future. At least I think that's what I think.

To paraphrase critic Greg Stevens from the Pop Arena YouTube channel, the key to writing good time travel is to not write time travel. More often than not, it just creates plotholes and raises billions of hopeless questions about how it works. The Russos have come forward and addressed a few questions concerning this aspect of the plot (I know, right? They're actually answering questions about Endgame now!), but the fact that any explanation has to be given outside of the film itself shows that there's a flaw in its storytelling.

And for me, this was a huge flaw. I didn't get the least bit emotional the first time I saw Endgame. By my third viewing though, I'd made enough peace with the film's troublesome elements that I could finally appreciate the heartfelt ones. I just hope that wasn't Marvel's plan to squeeze more ticket sales out of anyone.

At the end of the day, I think the best way to approach superhero movies like the MCU is perhaps to think of them as modern-day fairy tales. They're fantastical stories aimed mainly at younger people that teach lessons and have a certain emotional impact, and their logic is kind of beside the point. People today ask why the townsfolk in Beauty and the Beast never wondered what happened to the prince after he became cursed or why Sleeping Beauty's parents didn't put her under constant surveillance on the day of her sixteenth birthday, but the people who first read those stories didn't question those things. The point of those stories was what happened and what the characters did to overcome it, not the how or why, and they're still famous classics to this day. Taking time out of the plot to address questions like that might make those stories more cohesive, but I doubt it would really make them better.

Overall, Avengers Endgame is a very emotionally satisfying conclusion to the MCU's first major story arc, but to quote Sarah Connor, "God, you can go crazy thinking about all this."

Also, if you're worried about Captain Marvel ruining the movie, relax. The Russos didn't go for the head with that blow either.