WARNING: Due to the very nature of this film, this review is full of spoilers for every film that's a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. If (somehow) you haven't already seen the film, it is recommended that you watch it before reading this review.
When Iron Man came
out in the summer of 2008, few could have expected that it would be the
beginning of a franchise that would take over the planet. Spanning over 22
movies and several individual sub-franchises, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has
held a strong grip on the cinematic landscape that was (and somehow still is)
unprepared to face it, and the prize for such longevity came last year with the
Earth-shattering Avengers: Infinity War,
which took in over $2bn and left everyone in a state of intrigue as to how the
surviving superheroes will resolve the decimation of half the universal
population. Which is where Avengers:
Endgame rolls in – the true conclusion to not only Phase 3 of the MCU (Spider-Man: Far from Home being the
actual conclusion according to producers) but to the 11-year long Infinity Saga
– which has remained elusive in its marketing and revealed little more than the
coming justice for the Mad Titan, Thanos (Josh
Brolin). Throw in a 3-hour runtime and a fan mantra that demands spoilers
be sparse (although a major leak shortly before the release didn’t help
things), the answer to whether or not a decade-long arc with regular character
appearances can work has at last found its definitive answer: Yes, when done this well.
This entry is very much a celebration of its actual
existence, as it repeatedly makes callbacks to the biggest and smallest moment
from the past films that can either hinder or elevate a viewer’s enjoyment
depending on its usage – for example, T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) calls out to Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) during the Gauntlet tussle. An insignificant moment
for most, yet in actuality a small reference to T’Challa’s disinterest in
knowing his name in Captain America:
Civil War, and a sign of a character’s maturity in the years since the
events at the airport. The biggest nostalgia trip, of course, stems from the
second act’s journey through some of the best bits of the previous movies (and Thor: The Dark World) as the remaining
Avengers seek the Infinity Stones during the events of Marvel’s Avengers Assemble and Guardians
of the Galaxy. It’s fun to see the simpler beginnings of both major teams
in the universe alongside allowing for some fun character interactions with
younger versions of Loki (Tom Hiddleston),
Thor (Chris Hemsworth) et al (not to
mention an amusing interlude showing what Chris
Pratt’s infamous lip-sync sequence during Guardians’ opening credits looked like from the outside), and an
interaction between two Chris Evanses
presents a fun moment of admittance at both the core stance Steve Rogers takes
but also how he looked during the first group venture. With guest appearances
from Tilda Swinton showing how the
Sanctum Santorum was involved with vanquishing the Chitauri invasion, various members
of Hydra (Robert Redford!) and a
loving return from Renee Russo as
Thor’s mother Frigga, the second act is a marvellous (sorry) celebration ahead
of the bloodshed that’s soon to follow.
But Endgame thrives
more as a conclusion for the story arcs of each original member of the Avengers
team. While some characters upon initial viewing may seem short-changed or
given unfair justice in their appearances here – namely Scarlett Johannsson, Mark
Ruffalo and Hemsworth – in
actuality it perfectly fits their respective characters. Black Widow, burdened
by the horrors of her past that she must always carry, admits in Avengers Assemble that not only does
she have “red in my ledger” that she wants to wipe but that she owes Barton a
debt for saving her from her past occupation, and with that her regular
position as a member of the team – regardless of government approval – is her
making up for her history. When it’s revealed SHIELD was in part aligned with
Hydra, she tells Steve that the concept leaves her unsure as to what she is
anymore; switching one criminal organisation with another. Even in Endgame, she remains dedicated to her
cause even when everyone else has gone their separate ways and keeps a close
eye on Hawkeye, despite Rhodey’s warnings. This is the man who saved her. And
when the opportunity arises to finally repay her debt not only to society but
to the closest friend she has, naturally she would take the plunge on Vormir
and sacrifice herself for the Soul Stone. While it breaks your heart that she
can’t be a part of the massive climatic battle – and especially her lack of
presence during the ‘girl power’ moment’ – it’s her sacrifice that brings
everyone together again; especially reviving Clint’s very being following his
harsh fall into crazed vigilantism under the pseudonym ‘Ronin’. It’s
established early on how distraught his loss was, and the sight of his home sends
him rushing after his family when he tests the time travel technology, and his
willingness to sacrifice himself for the sake of his family alongside his
misdeeds makes the conflict on Vormir even more heart-wrenching.
With Thor, his fall from grace is by no means unprecedented.
Infinity War reminds viewers
repeatedly that the Asgardian has lost everything at this point: brother dead
by the hand of Thanos; father willingly lets go (in turn releasing Hela, who
also perishes); mother killed by a Dark Elf, and what remains of his people
decimated by the Titan at the worst possible moment. When he finally has the chance
to exact vengeance on the villain, he fails, and in turn carries the burden of
being responsible for Thanos’ victory. Naturally, his guilt eats away at him as
he falls in to a depressive state of avoiding outside interaction or even
mention of the event; surrounding himself only with alcohol and Korg (Taika Waititi) who appears to be just
as comfortable hiding away from further conflict. Even when he mentions Jane
Foster, he briefly lapses into an emotional state. It’s only when he gets the
chance to talk to his mother, who immediately gets a grasp of the idea that he’s
from the future, that he finally relinquishes his inner turmoil; the call for
Mjolnir instilling confidence in himself for the first time in five years.
Likewise, it’s that extensive period of being a hermit that reminds Thor that
the throne is not what he truly desires, and in turn relinquishes his birth
right in favour for Tessa Thompson’s
status promotion.
When we first lay eyes on Bruce Banner, it’s as much of a
shock to us as it is to Paul Rudd’s
Scott Lang, as it’s revealed that Banner and Hulk have become one in the conclusion
to his long-standing battle with his alter ego. When he first appeared in The Incredible Hulk, we were presented with the dynamic in the
tried and tested way, with Banner being resilient in not only refusing to give
the power to the US military but also from letting it hurt the people he cares
for (leading to his eventual control of the power in Avengers Assemble). Just when he was getting used to the control, Age of Ultron throws a spanner in the
works with Elizabeth Olsen’s
mind-meddling and the grasp at control lost. When Hulk awakens from his trance
and sees humanity afraid of him once more, he’s reminded of the monster the
public perceives him to be, and when given the chance to following the
vanquishing of Ultron he escapes in a Quinjet. Hence why in Thor: Ragnarok he’s adamant to leave his
new lifestyle and public adoration, and in turn refuses to turn back into Bruce
who would try and repress him once more (and vice versa with Bruce refusing to
Hulk out again until it was necessary). After failing in a one-to-one brawl
with Thanos at the start of Infinity War,
the Hulk refuses to come out again in the face of danger as a rebellious move
against his supposed purpose to Bruce – he’s done being a wrecking ball thrown
into the action because he needs to be. Hence his new appearance here as the
combined “Professor Hulk” – the brains of Banner with the strength of the Hulk.
A bizarre concoction, but a necessary one for the duo as they finally make
peace with one another.
Even some of the smaller characters have strong amounts of
depth handed to them, with Nebula (Karen
Gillan) literally facing her menacing past head-on and having Thanos’
impact as a demented father figure presented to us. The Nebula we see in 2014
is a daughter trying so desperately to appease her father against fellow adopted
daughter Gamora (Zoe Saldana) that
she would do whatever she could to get even the slightest bit of praise from
him, evident in the first Guardians when
she tries to take the challenge of capturing the Power Stone from Xandar. Even the
older Thanos admits that “perhaps […] I treated you too harshly”, which the 2014
version of Thanos must realise when he discovers the future version of his
daughter conspiring against him – using her resentment for him now as a way to
get the younger version of her to do his bidding now. When the two Nebulas face
one another alongside Gamora and Clint, the 2023 version tries to get her 2014
self to understand, but she can’t. She’s too disillusioned by Thanos’ power to
go against him and wants desperately to be his favourite daughter. And that’s
why 2023 Nebula kills her – killing the past version of herself to show that’s
she’s evolved past that.
Rocket, in the meantime, has finally come to terms that his
fellow Guardians are his true family, following his behaviour in Vol. 2 which almost got them all killed.
Now he’s come to terms that he was akin to Yondu with how he treated those
around him, he finally began to take his actions to heart and apologise for
them, and while in Infinity War he
still largely jokes around with the rest of the team he also does act like “the
captain” when dealing with Thor’s personal trauma. When Groot begins to fade
away around him, his harsh outer shell disintegrates with it as he cries out to
him, and when he reunites with Nebula in Endgame
they share a moment of grievance, as they lost everyone they ever cared
for. Rocket even finally admits to the Guardians being his family to Thor when
the Asgardian tries to get out of retrieving the Aether – he would do anything
to bring his family back, and a depressed God isn’t going to get in the way of
that. Against all that surrounds him, one would assume that Paul Rudd would be lost in the shuffle,
despite being a key part in the plan to retrieve the stones; but while he doesn’t
get the same depth everyone else does, he instead plays the part of the surrogate:
he’s the audience experiencing the madness of a time period where loved ones
have disappeared (his reunion with his daughter being especially prevalent of
this factor) and the one responding to the quips and the speeches. His journey
from stealer to superhero has yet to reach its conclusion, but this entry does
still present him doing heroic acts.
Of course, the big two have the biggest endings of them all
with their respective retirements. Steve Rogers had never truly settled into
the modern day following his freezing in Captain
America: The First Avenger. His arrival into the 21st century
brought with it the skeletons of the past with SHIELD’s desire to harness the
power of the Tesseract, then the combination of Hydra’s survival as well as his
best friend Bucky’s (Sebastian Stan).
For a while, Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell)
was still there for him, albeit in a distressing state, but he put his focus
entirely on sticking to his ideals and the Avengers concept. Scarlet Witch’s
vision of Steve seeing Peggy again at a dance reminded him that the life he
once lived is truly gone. He admits to Stark that the Avengers is his home at
the end of Age of Ultron, but the
combination of that home possibly being taken away from him for ideological
reasons he doesn’t agree with, the death of Peggy and the re-emergence of Bucky
sends Steve’s world spiralling out of control in Civil War, leading him into the dark path we find him on in Infinity War. He still thinks well of
his fellow Avengers but can’t stand to go against his beliefs when the sake of
the world is more important than what elected officials have to say.
In Endgame, we
see early on that Steve, even so many years on, misses Peggy and resents the
fact that he can’t ever live that life; and when he sees a framed photo of his
former self on her desk in the 1970s, he truly realises that she too wishes
that he was still alive. While his heroic actions were finally proven to be
worthwhile when he triumphantly managed to call Mjolnir into his possession, it’s
when he’s given the chance to go home that he takes it: he never fit into this
new world despite his best efforts, and with the knowledge that his one true
love never stopped loving him, he jumped at the chance to be with her and live
a normal life. Steve Rogers told Tony Stark that “family, stability… the guy
who wanted all that went in the ice 75 years ago” – he lost his chance. He got
it again and took it, making his final goodbye worthwhile, and his belief in Sam
Wilson (Anthony Mackie) taking on
the mantle of Captain America – a man who came out of retirement for the sake of
his country and stood by Steve’s same ideals – a worthy decision.
And then there’s Tony Stark. The man who started it all “in
a cave… with a box of scraps!” A man who initially became the man he is solely
for his own survival, before exacting revenge on the people who captured him
using his weapons by unleashing his upgraded armour on them when they attacked
a small village. A man whose biggest foes had been fellow businessmen, a
Russian with a personal vendetta for the Stark lineage and his failing
technology. But when Loki and the Chitauri arrived, that all changed. The wider
universe that surrounded him finally collapsed on top of him and risked his own
life in their ultimate destruction – the implications of which he suffers from when
things become small-scale once again in Iron
Man 3. He grows more afraid of a larger threat and stays up all night building
new suits and becomes more isolated from the people around him. The Mandarin
attack hitting him close to home was both a blessing and a curse; the wake-up call
that should have brought about the end of Iron Man.
And yet, here he is in Age
of Ultron still doing his thing. Scarlet Witch only pushes his fears more
as he imagines the Avengers all dead and Steve asking why he didn’t do more to
stop it. This of course leads to Ultron, and more weight on his heavy heart. Civil War sees him agree with the government
over the need to “be put in check” as the one-two punch of separating from
Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow) and the
news of an innocent boy being killed by his actions hits him hard. The conflict
that soon follows just makes things worse as both sides – each with good
reasoning – are unable to truly get along. Just when things do seem to finally
be going right as he and Rogers put their differences aside for a larger cause,
a tape plays: December 16th, 1991. Bucky Barnes killing Tony’s
parents. Steve – a man who was created and idolised by Tony’s father – aware that
his best friend, the man he continually sticks up for, never told him this fact.
It shatters their friendship, and the ensuing battle shows their destroyed
friendship.
By Spider-Man:
Homecoming and Avengers: Infinity
War, he appears to be on the right track. With Tom Holland’s Peter Parker acting as something of a distant surrogate
son of his (only really acting out when the boy went too far against his parenting)
and his relationship healing with Pepper Potts, there’s a chance that thinks are
finally looking up. But in comes Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Bruce Banner revealing that the Big Bad
is coming. Thanos, the being that Tony has been preparing for all this time, is
finally here. Tony immediately steps into action, and despite forgotten
friendships is at least willing to reunite the Avengers to thwart him, before
being stopped in his tracks by the arrival of the Black Order. He refuses to
turn away from Titan because he wants to stop the Mad Titan before he can reach
Earth, putting aside the fact that they not only harbour the Time Stone but
also a teenage boy in their spaceship, and in turn pay the price when Thanos
ultimately wins despite Tony’s continued efforts to upgrade his technology. And
when Peter vanishes before his eyes, he’s also lost the closest thing to a son
he had ever had.
Throw in a long period of isolation and starvation about the
Benatar (the Guardians’ spaceship), and Tony is naturally rattled when he returns
home. He lashes out against Steve for not heeding his warning about “a suit of
armour around the world” and how they only lost because they were apart, and
with that he goes away. He lives the life on a barn akin to how he prophesised
in Age of Ultron and starts a family,
officially retiring from the role of Iron Man. And yet, when the past comes
crawling back with an opportunity to reverse the actions, he takes it – only because
he knows that he wouldn’t be able to rest if he didn’t. Throw in an interaction
with his long-dead father at a time before his birth – a moment where the two
Starks finally bond and get along, albeit in a bizarre sense where John Slattery’s character doesn’t even
know this is his son he’s talking to – and his might to face his biggest foe
once more alongside Thor and Steve, alongside a heartfelt reunion with Peter
Parker on the battlefield, and his past actions have finally had a proper conclusion.
All that’s left is for him to take the ultimate sacrifice and destroy his enemy
once and for all at the cost of his own life. He snaps his Stoned-fingers, and
the enemy turns to dust around him, but dies as a result. He clearly tries to
fight it, with what little power he still has, but when Pepper finally tells
him he can rest because he won, he finally lets go. Steve Rogers told him in Avengers Assemble that Stark wasn’t the
kind of guy who would put his own life on the line. Initially that was true,
but when his world became larger and the people around it grew more important
than his own, he took every chance he had, regardless of stakes, to make things
right. The first arc reactor may have been proof that Tony Stark physically had
a heart, but his final actions around the ashes of the Avengers headquarters proved
that he had a caring heart too.
If a character does feel short-changed in this final outing,
it is Thanos himself. While Infinity War
presented a strong and powerful antagonist who you could agree with and was
a true menace to all who opposed him, this Thanos plays out a little more
stereotypically; a villain who wishes to wipe out all life as punishment to
those who went against his belief. It isn’t an unexpected move – especially for
a character nicknamed “the Mad Titan” – but it loses some of the impact that
came with the initial process of gaining the stones. Likewise, newcomer Brie Larson is here more out of
obligation than as purposeful in her role as Captain Marvel, as outside her
saving Stark and Nebula from the depths of outer space and a couple of
interactions with Thanos she doesn’t interact with the main story – although her
excuse of having to protect more planets than just Earth is justifiable enough.
Don Cheadle gets a decent amount to
do, and his pairing with Nebula – a fellow artificially-augmented individual – makes
for a unique rapport that unexpectedly works in action, but outside conversation
about his paralysis has little insight, while surviving side characters Danai Gurira and Benedict Wong have minimal roles despite their powersets, but that’s
more nit-picking than anything.
Despite an especially dark third act lighting-wise making 3D
a slight struggle to fully comprehend, the visual effects seem to be a step up
from Infinity War’s (which faltered
at points involving the Hulkbuster and the Iron Man suits on top of the actors)
and the combination of old footage and new blends seamlessly during the time
travel section of the film. Alan
Silvestri’s score harkens back more to the themes of old alongside his
first Avengers score yet proves to
be perhaps Marvel’s best score yet next to Ludwig
Göransson’s Oscar-winning Black
Panther score as it perfectly encapsulates the tone certain scenes aspire
for (‘Portals’ may be an MCU best). And while the Russos have proven once more that they expanded far beyond their
comedic roots, it’s the screenwriting team of Christopher Markus and Stephen
McFeely who are the true gauntlet-bearers of this piece, and who are finally
getting the credit due for their hard work and dedication. The screenplay may
not be perfect (with some comedic moments not landing quite as hard as prior
Marvel movies) but, as examined above, presents a pitch-perfect finale for many
of these characters.
If the Marvel Cinematic Universe was ever to end, Avengers: Endgame would be that textbook
ending. Closing the book on countless character’s ongoing story arcs alongside
this entire saga of movies, it’s difficult to imagine a Marvel universe without
the presence of Iron Man, Captain America (a character who hasn’t taken a year
away from the silver screen since his introduction in 2011), Thor, Black Widow,
Hawkeye or the Incredible Hulk, but if this franchise is to carry on, it’s good
to know that it’s surviving under the blueprints handed down to them from these
behemoths. But they aren’t going down without a celebration and a fight, and
with a three-hour runtime that never feels like it, it’s a grand finale that actually
feels grand in both scale and execution. 10/10.
