Avengers: Endgame

Hot take: Infinity War was better.

But first let me say this about Avengers: Endgame. An uncharacteristic movie requires an uncharacteristic self: which for me, is going to great lengths to avoid any potential spoiler content. Normally, I'm pretty nonchalant about it. But it goes to say that the hype has been absolutely unreal surrounding this movie. The numbers prove it, and so do the voices of the vast majority of the audience. Some people have literally cried during the show, while others are watching it for the 10th time tonight. Now, my expectations were pretty sky-high for Avengers: Endgame. There had been 11 years of straight superhero sagas behind us and the producers had one single 3-hour movie to end it all. Although I had expectations, I did not know what to expect. I was just prepared to jump out of my seat every 10 minutes and get carried to the ER at some point, diagnosed with "extreme mind-blown syndrome". However, here's what I've concluded based on my experience alone. I hate to be that one sour grape of the vineyard... but sadly, I'm going to be that one sour grape.

Avengers: Endgame, to me, is an overrated movie.

Are we good? Okay, take a deep breath. I am going to say it again. Avengers: Endgame is an overrated movie and this is the challenging conclusion that I came to after arduously making sense of my irksome dissatisfaction that I left with after the show. It's going to be a hefty explanation, and I bet you expect to hear a damn good one at that. Let's start this review by differentiating between cinematic value and fan service.

Cinematic value encompasses pretty much everything that goes into making a film. Script, story, characters, acting, sound, special effects, editing, you name it. Some elements are more important than the others, which can be a judgment call based on people's tastes. But undeniably, at the bare minimum, the script and the story must be done well for any quality movie. Sadly, the script and the story is not done well for Avengers: Endgame. And there lies a big reason why Avengers: Infinity War was better because it was much better streamlined as a film due to having more cinematic value. On the other hand, Avengers: Endgame is a perfect example of fan service. It delivers the intermittent spurts of epic-ness that fans get easily excited about and rides the coattails of a renowned franchise to generate hype. Some people are fine with that, but some people like me expect a bit more. While I realize that there are good reasons for the certain noticeable downgrades in this film, it's worth discussing the negatives first before acknowledge how Avengers: Endgame is a bizarre departure from a movie whose stellar box office echoes its stellar cinematic value.

First of all, this idea of time travel... it is what it is. It's a really cool idea to bring into a supernatural universe but time travel is a convoluted idea by nature, which opens many doors for a convoluted plot. Although the time travel arc is not a focal point in Avengers: Endgame, it does significantly contribute to slowing down the pacing during the middle one hour of the movie. Besides the time travel shenanigans though, there was also a sense that the writing put more weight on the wisecrack aspect rather than the story's thematic depth. The two most obvious examples that jump out are what they did to Thor and the Hulk (Bruce Banner). In summary, they were made into a joke in this movie. The segments were funny while they lasted, but as a big picture, I expected Thor and especially the Hulk to bravely face their respective inner conflicts and be the quintessential heroes like they were in their earlier movies, not cheap placeholders for some cheap comedy.

Now, this leads to a bigger point: most (if not all) characters in Avengers: Endgame were one-dimensional. First thing first, the acting is amazing and engaging as usual. I also appreciated the fact that the superheroes felt more human than any of the previous movies. But let's start by pointing out how insignificant of a role Captain Marvel played in this movie. You hype her up in the post-credit scene of Avengers: Infinity War, release her own solo film before the grand finale, and all she gets is maybe a generously estimated 15 minutes of screen time in the sequel. Moving onto the next, I am slightly disappointed to see Thanos being reduced to a simplistic villain. He is easily the main reason why Avengers: Infinity War is so unique as a superhero film due to his two-faced nature and his incredibly metaphysical motives, which made the overall story much more exciting and anticipatory to follow. After all, Thanos is the reason why Avengers: Endgame even exists, so curtailing his presence by a shocking amount in the sequel (especially when I personally wanted more of him) somewhat surprised me.

Final point, and here is where I disagree with the majority in that Avengers; Endgame fails to provide a sense of an ending. Now, I've had my share of nitpicking that can be easily experienced both ways, but for me, because I designated the most emphasis and expectations on the ending, my insecurity forces me to express my overall disappointment with this movie (although disappointment is an unfair overstatement). To summarize my inconsequential but otherwise honest impression, the Russo brothers clearly knew what to end the movie with, but they had no idea how to arrive at that point. The ending, as blood-boiling and touching it can be, betrays anecdotal coherence and in the process, diminishes its purpose to help the Marvel franchise transition into a brand new phase and to definitively close the books for several major characters. I regularly found myself surprised saying, "that's it?" because of how abrupt and rushed the scenes felt during the final few minutes. Given how overloaded this movie is from the beginning, the continuity is utterly destroyed which also compromises a well-paced development towards an impactful ending. Again, this echoes back to my previous point about cinematic value versus fan service.

For fan service, it is sufficient that certain events merely occur. But as you can tell from my impassioned hobby that is writing about movies, an event has to be more than an occurrence. If an important character dies for the purposes of inducing a visceral reaction from the audience, the whole film should be dedicated to paving the way and preparing for the very moment. This goes along with the classic phrase about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. Avengers: Infinity War transcends its parts and successfully merges everything together in the end for a final push as we see in Wakanda. Avengers: Endgame indubitably possesses the best moments that the franchise has ever created, but it lacks the harmony to be an emotionally memorable product as a whole. A film is not a patchwork of moments. It has to be a unified mosaic. Avengers: Endgame is a patchwork and fan service, while Avengers: Infinity War is a mosaic, hence a better-made film.

That being said, my kryptonite is my own expectations. The most memorable stretch of Avengers: Endgame was easily the final climatic battle. But I expected to be profoundly impacted by a film as a whole, not by parts. This is a rather pessimistic point given how the movie is very easy to nitpick, precisely because of compromises to re-organize the story in extension of a previous movie and balancing an absurd number of characters at a few places. In such a case, three hours was definitely not long enough and this why I have no idea what else the already overwhelmed Russo brothers could have done to improve the story and the script, given the time constraints. And this dead end is what bothers me the most. Culturally, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is one of the most significant in the 21st century. But despite the hype and its record-breaking performance, I don't think we would be treating Avengers: Endgame itself at the same level. We may only transiently treat Endgame as such because there was so much past history to it. But as it stands alone, the movie really is incoherent and individually, it movie doesn't even come close as even the best in the franchise (that title goes to Avengers: Infinity War). Would I re-watch it? Surprisingly, no. At least not immediately. You can read about my weirdly unorthodox criteria for "re-watchability" here, but in short, I would rather experience only parts of it. Sitting through three hours just to reach those gold nuggets again is not a worthy compromise for me, and I would rather use that time and money to watch other awesome movies this summer, like John Wick 3, Godzilla: King of Monsters or heck, even Pokémon Detective Pikachu.

Nevertheless, being part of the Marvel culture has been one of the biggest joys in my life. With a more positive outlook, I perceive Avengers: Endgame as a symbol of cultural influence that Marvel Entertainment had for anybody, any industry in the 21st century. Take yourself back to the first Iron Man (2008) and ask yourself this: could you have ever imagine that it would all come down to this? Before you answer that question, your mind might be reliving through all your favourite moments from all twenty-two Marvel movies thus far. You may be smiling at the fact that you have been existing in a parallel universe, shared by many others who sat beside you in the theatre. Avengers: Endgame is not just an industrial triumph. It is also the greatest exemplar of escapist entertainment and a symbol of the cinematic culture that naturally manifested in all of us. We never think twice about spending money for a Marvel movie, and just like Tony Stark or Steve Rogers, we follow the hero's journey from start to finish so that we too can make one for ourselves.

*All images on this post are legally owned by Marvel Studios.