Avengers Endgame
The main Avengers in the wake of Iron Man (Photo: Disney).
On April 26, 2019 one of the most anticipated movies of all time came out. When it hit the theaters the sales were just under 3 billion dollars. It became the 2nd all time selling movie, behind Avatar.. For decades, the Russo brothers had built an empire, and endgame was the king of it all. It was three whole hours long, with 59 returning characters coming to reclaim their roles as the avengers. It earned 3 billion dollars, with a budget of 356 million dollars, this movie was a titanic success for marvel, and carried the legacy of the avengers for years to come. A true giant of a movie, Endgame is one of the most amazing movies ever made.
Every giant has its faults, though. Endgame has some cracks in its wall, however it can still hold weight. One of the most cited problems with this movie is the pacing and the length. As a high scoring Rotten Tomato reviewer put it, ¨Still, there are some pacing issues and more than a few plot contrivances.¨ This movie is three hours long and it shows. While the length of the movie does drag it down a bit, it is kind of understandable. They need to give a believable arc to pretty much every main character, of which there are almost 20. They can pull it off, but it can drag at points.
That's about it for my real complaints, the rest can really be described as nitpicks. Things like the weird time travel, and the unnecessary scenes. But from here, we can really focus on the positive. The first and most obvious is Iron Man's arc. He goes from a selfish egomaniac to sacrificing himself for the greater good. In the most emotional scenes in the marvel Cinematic Universe, we see Tony Stark use the stones to kill Thanos's army, and Thanos himself. It is the ultimate cap to his role of Iron Man, and gives a real and powerful ending to the Avengers.
You may have started to ask the question, “Ending of the Avengers? But they are still making movies?” This is the other main issue with Endgame. It is too strong of an ending. It puts almost all of the characters to rest, and gives a solid conclusion to the MCU but we are still getting movies. Why? Short answer: money and development. Long answer: it's Disney, they are going to milk this as long as they can. In my eyes, the rest of the MCU movies will be dedicated to getting a new perspective. Shows like Wandavision do not really further the plot for anything, but are a small introspective into Wanda's sorrow and grief. They are not meant to be huge cgi filled movies, but a smaller look at the MCU’s characters.
We cannot talk about Endgame without talking about the themes. It has some underlying themes, but they are not that in your face. Things like sacrifice, love, and spending time well all come together to form some conglomerate of a theme. There is no central idea, the idea is central. It is very fitting because what could they really say that could satisfy the grandiosity of Endgame? One of them would have made the movie very bogged down in a specific message, and they managed to fix this problem and improve the movie in one fell swoop.
Without Iron Man the movie is not structurally sound, but it is the other main characters that hold it up with him. People like Captain America and Black Panther already had their arcs, but Thor still had room to grow. He had just finished out of one of the best Marvel movies ever made, (Ragnarok) and was ready for some juicy character development. And then they put him in a fat suit.
This, in my opinion, was one of the biggest blunders of the movie. Thor had lost everything, and was filled with rage and anguish, but they decided to play it for laughs. He is showing direct signs of late stage PTSD, and even Tony Stark makes jokes at his expense. This, for one, is not a good look for Marvel. They made fun of a very serious disease that most veterans suffer from, and it does not make sense for Tony to do this. He suffered from panic attacks and PTSD in Iron Man 3, and it makes no sense for him to further Thor's issues when he himself suffered from the same thing. All in all, a missed opportunity at best, a blatant mockery of PTSD at worst.
You may or may not have noticed, but we have not talked about the most important character. The mad titan, Thanos. No argument about it, Thanos is the main character. The first person we see, the first person to talk, he kills a god in the first ten minutes, this is definitely the main character. This is a very smart move on the writers' part, because it gives them time to make Thanos a character. They can develop him and give him an arc. He thinks what he is doing is righteous, but in the end learns his twisted kind of lesson. He realises that the will of humanity will always shine through, and that is a very resounding ending for him. It cleanly wraps up his character, and makes the hero's victory all that more compelling.
In conclusion, Endgame was one of the best Marvel movies of all time. It broke records in the box office, and it set a new standard for the huge action adventure movies that we are seeing more of every year. It's great characters, storytelling, villain, and premise brings it to the top of all Marvel movies. Even with its flaws, it still manages to be great. It pushes through, and creates something beautiful.