Time: 183 Minutes
Age Rating: M – Violence
Cast:
Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man
Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America
Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk
Chris Hemsworth as Thor
Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow
Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/Hawkeye
Don Cheadle as James “Rhodey” Rhodes/War Machine
Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/Ant-Man
Brie Larson as Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel
Karen Gillan as Nebula
Danai Gurira as Okoye
Benedict Wong as Wong
Jon Favreau as Harold “Happy” Hogan
Bradley Cooper as Rocket
Gwyneth Paltrow as Virginia “Pepper” Potts
Josh Brolin as Thanos
Director: Anthony and Joe Russo

I remember really loving Avengers: Endgame when I saw it in the cinemas, I even gave it my highest rating at the time. Since then, my opinion of it and much of the MCU has changed, and I was curious to see what my current thoughts of it would be. I rewatched the standard version of Endgame, not the Encore version (the cinema re-release with additional scenes to tease Doomsday), and I think that it’s pretty solid, even with its clear issues.

Infinity War was large scale and sprawling with so many characters, so it was expected that Endgame would also be full of the large scale battles and sequences to conclude the Infinity Saga. However, it took a very different approach, at least for about 75% of it. After the prologue and the time jump of 5 years, Endgame presents itself as something surprisingly introspective. The first half particularly allows time for the characters to reckon with the effects and loss from the Snap. Of course, you really only get snapshots of what’s going on with these characters since the movie has to get on with them saving everyone. Still, the more human focused first act is probably the most consistently strong aspect of the movie. It also benefits from the limited main cast. As far as the main characters go, it’s the original 6 Avengers, plus War Machine, Rocket Raccoon, Nebula and Ant-Man, that’s it. The rest of the major MCU players really only play a big part in the final battle. As such, this allows the movie to sit with the characters a bit more and to give them some depth. 

Eventually, Endgame becomes a time travel movie, where the 10 main characters have to team up to go back in time, take the Infinity Stones from the past, and use them to bring everyone back. I’m not one to really criticise or scrutinise time travel logic and go into whether or not it makes sense. However, if a time travel movie is going to joke about time travel logic like “time travel isn’t like how it is in Back to the Future, that’s not how it works”, it better have some air-tight fictional time travel logic. Endgame doesn’t have that, it’s just something you have to go with. The time heist itself is fine, it’s mainly the Avengers going back to familiar locations and moments like the Battle of New York in 2012’s The Avengers. It isn’t especially engaging but I suppose it’s better they went the time travel route instead of it just being a 3 hour movie mainly consisting of big battles. The intimate scenes that are allowed to play out without being interrupted by jokes actually worked. There are some meaningful character interactions along the way, like Tony Stark meeting his father, and Thor meeting his mother on the day that she’s about to die during the events of Thor: The Dark World. However, Endgame has a big issue with tone. Despite its commitment to being genuine and emotional, so many serious moments get interrupted by jokes, and once again the humour is hit or miss. The scenes with Thor is the clearest example of this. It also leans into the call backs and references a bit too much for my liking.

Once the Avengers return to their time period, that’s when things suddenly blow up and becomes the big climactic conclusion that people were expecting Endgame to be, for better and for worse. Out of everything in the movie that has aged the worst, it’s definitely the climax for me. It leans further into the fan service, and the big moments don’t feel earned. I get that the MCU up to this point had been building up to a large sequence in which all the familiar characters in the franchise come together to take part in a final big battle. If there was a way for it to be great, I don’t think they had pulled it off. Most of my issues come with the actual direction and presentation of these scenes more than anything else, but it’s easily the worst act of the movie. Regardless of the messy climax, I do think it generally works as an emotional conclusion to this Infinity Saga.

The cast do pretty well, and it benefits from essentially having just 10 main characters, allowing for some character development and for all of them to have chances to shine, even if some get it better than others. Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man is once again one of the highlights, his character development and journey concluded very well here. Chris Evans as Captain America gets to do much more here compared to his role in Infinity War. Ant-Man was surprisingly a standout, with him essentially being the one to spark off the time heist to save everyone. I also liked Karen Gillan’s Nebula being one of the main characters. Thor in Infinity War was probably his best appearance in the MCU, but his appearance in Endgame is a bit of a mixed bag. It has potential, with him taking the events of the last movie very hard, blaming himself for not successfully killing Thanos when it counted, and having regressed into a despondent alcoholic. The problem is that Endgame can’t seem to decide whether or not to actually treat him with seriousness, bouncing between some genuinely serious and emotional scenes, to jokes about him being overweight (which feel like they belong more in Thor: Ragnarok or even Thor: Love and Thunder). I wouldn’t say he’s bad here, and he definitely has his moment, but he really could’ve been handled better. Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner/Hulk was pretty much used as a running joke throughout Infinity War, whenever he’s not just telling everyone about Thanos. In Endgame, his role is at least a step up from that, and both Bruce and Hulk have merged into one mind and body in the 5 years that have passed. He’s still used for comedy, but he gets a lot more to actually do here compared to Infinity War.

The direction from The Russo Brothers is functional on the whole, but like Infinity War, it’s not without its faults. Visually, Endgame is almost on the level of Infinity War, with some moments that look great and really good CGI in parts, but also plenty of other scenes that look very grey or downright ugly. The action in the first two acts are restrained, but work fine enough for the movie’s purpose. However, the biggest problems come in the third act where you have the Avengers (really the entire MCU) vs Thanos. Unfortunately, the visuals look so muddy and dull, especially the digital generic wasteland background. When it comes to the big scale action, everything from the aliens to even many of the MCU heroes feel so weightless. The action is so busy in the way that previous Avengers movies weren’t, and much of what was happening on screen could be best described as “stuff happening”. The action is considerably better when it focuses on individual fights. For example, the initial fight with Iron Man, Captain America and Thor teaming up to fight Thanos had a lot more weight and was genuinely good. When the camera pulls back and we see Iron Man just blasting random things in the air however, it looks really flat. I think I overlooked this when I first watched the movie because I was wrapped up in the hype, emotions and payoff, but separated from that, the final battle unfortunately just isn’t that good.

Avengers: Endgame is messy, tonally mixed, and ends with a visually muddy third act. But it is reasonably solid on the whole, and is a fine enough conclusion to the Infinity Saga.