‘Avengers: Endgame’: A Fitting Finale for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes
“Avengers: Endgame”, the culmination of more than 10 years of world-building and avenging, is almost impossible to compare to any other movie. It isn’t your typical movie, and it certainly isn’t your typical superhero movie. It is an event unlike any other, a solemn, epic, and heroic event on a scale both intimate and larger than life. The movie’s ending is not one of the great movie endings; it is a great ending to an era. The era that started in 2008 with “Iron Man” and has continued, only occasionally sputtering, to this day, with “Captain Marvel” being the most recent installment before “Endgame”.
Despite it being the fourth movie in the “Avengers” franchise and the 22nd in the Marvel one, it is refreshingly different from all that have come before it in a myriad of ways. Where most Marvel movies are contrived and formulaic, “Endgame” is unpredictable and exciting. It subverts its audience’s expectations at every turn, weaving a complicated tale of loss, fun, and fulfillment. As a finale, it’s about as good a send-off as you could hope for many of the most beloved MCU characters.
To get it out of the way, there was one blatant miss on the part of the directors, Joe and Anthony Russo, and the screenwriters, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely: the humor. Not that the material is unfunny. Quite the opposite, in fact. And not lack of it, either. Again, the opposite. There is too much humor, in the wrong places. The script has many jokes, and many sombre scenes. Unfortunately, it doesn’t perform a great balancing act, resulting in a somewhat oddly toned movie that bounces back and forth between humor and heart. Both are good, but the humor occasionally interrupts the heart.
“Endgame” manages remind you of almost every previous MCU movie while still maintaining a tight focus on the Avengers most dear to our hearts. The movie is very clearly divided into three acts. The first is a slow, almost artsy evaluation of denial, guilt, and the aftermath of “Avengers: Infinity War.” It is refreshing precisely because it is slow, it takes its time, and it allows you to breathe after the near non-stop action of 2018’s “Infinity War”.
The character work, the fruit by which the MCU thrives, is on full display, with exceptional acting work by Paul Rudd as Ant-Man, Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, and Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye. Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man and Chris Evans’ Captain America are always good, but they shine most in the third act.
The second act, which I can’t spoil here, is a whole lot of fun mixed in with some real emotion. Especially one delicious, New York-based sequence and one nostalgic, military-set adventure.
The third act is a spectacle to behold. And people thought the battle for Wakanda was epic. All I can say is that my body was literally trembling for the entire last hour, even on second viewing. Once you see this final confrontation, you’ll realize that the MCU has been holding back. They haven’t yet indulged in full comic-book giddiness, and here, all of the build-up is paid off in full.
Pay-off, yes, the stuff of Marvel dreams. The stuff that every previous installment has seemed to be leading to. Marvel has gotten its fair share of criticisms, but one of the biggest complaints is that there doesn’t seem to be an end. Where’s it all going, the casual viewer may wonder? And here, finally, is an ending. An ending fit only for the gods, superhumans, and aliens of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Through the tears you are sure to shed, you’ll be, at long last, content. I walked out of “Avengers: Endgame” feeling for one like an emotional wreck, and for another, like I didn’t have to see a new Marvel movie in my life, and I’d be happy. That was the greatest feeling in the world.
{★★★½}