Endgame a fitting finale to the Avengers franchise
There are some powerful moments of sacrifice, and a few wistful reunions
“If I tell you what happens, it won’t happen.” That’s a line from the final chapter of The Avengers , now spanning 22 films since we first met Robert Downey, Jr. as Iron Man more than a decade ago. I won’t even tell you who says it, but I swear it was included as a shot across the bow of critics: Don’t spoil this!
Consider me warned. And as an experiment, I’ll tell you that the final battle is over which superhero Captain, America or Marvel, gets to be called “Cap.” There; now it won’t happen.
A lot does happen in Endgame , so much that the three-hour runtime goes by in a snap. (There are no post-credit scenes to wait for, however.) It picks up three weeks after the end of the last movie, which concluded with big-bad Thanos – Josh Brolin if he looked like an aubergine wrestler – wishing away half the population of the universe. Yes, birds too.
The survivors are understandably shell-shocked, but when Brie Larson as Captain Marvel arrives from outer space with a simple plan “to kill Thanos,” it feels like Endgame might be over in 20 minutes. Alas, that scheme doesn’t quite go as planned, and the next thing you know it’s five years later. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) has let himself go. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) has embraced his inner Hulk.
The rest of the survivors – including Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), War Machine (Don Cheadle) and Ant-man (Paul Rudd) – concoct a scheme to undo what Thanos did. Iron Man tells them it’s wishful thinking, but damned if he doesn’t crack the solution himself. And isn’t wishful thinking what superhero movies are all about anyway?
And so off they go on what sometimes feels like a greatest-hits mix of the previous films. If you’ve forgotten that Captain America once had a 10-on-one brawl in a glass elevator, or that Tilda Swinton was wisdom personified as The Ancient One, then some of these flashbacks and callbacks won’t mean much. But I’d peg the level of confusion as no greater than if you were flying across the International Date Line and trying to calculate whether you’d have time to catch Game of Thrones when you got home. Tricky but doable, especially considering how many moving parts this film has.
The core avengers do most of the narrative heavy lifting in the heist-y script by Christopher Markus and Stephen Mcfeely, but I was impressed with the depth of character afforded to Karen Gillan’s blue-hued Nebula, adopted daughter of Thanos and latter-day member of the Guardians of the Galaxy. There is a point in the movie where her divided loyalties result in a kind of schism – and no superhero matchup is more fun than “who would win in a fight against herself?”
Endgame is a fitting finale to the franchise, at least in as much as Marvel movies will ever truly end. It’s not quite the equal of Harry Potter’s swan song in 2011, nor that of the windy but heartfelt Return of the King of 2003. But then neither does it dip to are-wethere-yet levels of The Hobbit , or the when-is-it-even-coming-back of Avatar .
And despite the comic-book origins of the tale, the stakes feel real, with some powerful moments of sacrifice, and a few wistful reunions. Not to mention one kick-ass all-female sequence, like a superhero Lilith Fair. And the bit when Tony Stark learns to hug. But I’ve probably said too much already. If I tell you how to feel, it won’t happen. So I’ll leave that to you.