Avengers: Endgame

 Avengers: Endgame was the last film that several of the core actors were contracted for so going in I knew it would be the final time to see them work as a group and some would likely not survive.  I am happy to admit that I guessed the title in advance as I had picked up on the significance of Dr. Strange’s line in Infinity War “We’re in the endgame” after he gave the time stone to Thanos.

The title is, in truth, a misnomer as it really was only the end for Tony Stark and Steve Rogers.  Just about every other Avenger either has or will appear in a follow-up film or TV show.  The planning for these two films allowed the audience to feel the impact of the Infinity War finale by separating the two films by a year.  We mourned the loss of the blipped characters and wondered how the remaining Avengers could possibly resolve it.  I thought it might involve some time-travel but was pleased that the marketing for the film gave little hint, spending other than to show two minor spoilers.  In the trailers we see Tony Stark marooned in space and then later marching with the other Avengers, indicating that he does make it back to Earth, and Scott Lang approaching the Avengers compound, showing that he somehow has made it out of the Quantum Zone (and hinting that he will play a significant role in resolving the problem).

Spoilers for Avengers Endgame below

One of the biggest questions is how to open a film this big so it will create an impact.  The Russo Brothers nail this by showing Hawkeye’s perspective as he loses his family in the snap, in a devastating scene with no score.  Afterwards I wondered how Hawkeye might have reacted if maybe one of his children had remained and the rest of the family had left.  The theme is set that the film will deal with the loss, which is accentuated a few scenes later when the team discovers that Thanos has destroyed the stones and the people appear to be permanently lost.

This sets up Endgame’s three act (and hour) structure.  The first forty minutes or so is the aftermath of the snap and, the five-year jump as we gradually see how everyone has established themselves.  The next twenty minutes deals with the planning of the time heist, which involves getting the band back together.  The second hour focuses on the heist itself and the third with the final battle of the Infinity War as just about every surviving (and returning) Avenger fights Thanos’ minions. 

The first two hours of the film are fantastic.  The Russo’s introduce the theme of Iron Man’s mortality with his dilemma in space (no one seems too concerned about Nebula though).  Tony is trying to face the situation with his trademark humor but also recognize the situation without self-pity.  Silvestri’s score is powerful but understated when he leaves his message to Pepper.  It appears Tony is dying but the heavenly light shining on him turns out to be Captain Marvel.  Tony talked about one last miracle, which he gets and takes full advantage of when he gets home, though he is again suffering from PTSD, survivor’s guilt, and from his stab wound.  When I first saw the film, I did not see Pepper reacting to the spaceship landing so when Tony starts to ask about her and she enters the shot I had a gasp of relief just as he did.  The Russo brothers should have kept her out of the previous shot to make her entrance that much more powerful.

The time jump also shows how the different Avengers have processed the blip.  Captain America is unsurprisingly trying to assuage his pain by helping others and leading a support group, out of uniform.  Natasha is trying to maintain the Avengers but seems almost on the edge of a nervous breakdown as she has lost so much of the family that she had changed her values and purpose to fight for.  Banner has made himself into a Hulk sized Banner and has apparently given up any hope of a relationship with Natasha.  Thor’s reaction is perhaps the strongest as he has gone on a bender and is now an alcoholic and gained a lot of weight, using his status to threaten online gamers (which is played for comedy but is actually a little terrifying).  Tony has taken his lease on life and is now living in a cabin in upstate New York somewhere with Pepper, who he has presumably married, and had a daughter, Morgan, who is a lot like him.  Seeing Tony as a father to young child gives Downey a fresh angle to play the character. 

One of my curiosities ahead of the film was how Scott would escape the Quantum Zone. The answer was by pure happenstance which is the same way people were either blipped or not.  Rudd also gets to play the grief and the relief when he sees his daughter though we do not see her mother or stepfather though at least one of them must have survived the snap.   Scott’s entrance into the scene when Natasha seems at her lowest point starts the slow road to the Avengers picking up the pieces and planning the heist.

Jeremy Renner is so often cast as a supporting player nowadays but is such an interesting actor, gets some strong material, having become Ronin, a vicious vigilante who is dealing with his grief by embracing his anger.  The scene in which he kills several Yakuza gangsters in one tracking shot in Tokyo is powerful and contrasts nicely with the subsequent scene in which he tests the Pym particles by going back to his farm before his family was snapped. 

The film’s time travel logic is a little confusing but as I understood it the idea was if the stones are taken it creates their timeline branch which can be eradicated by putting the stones back after they have been used.  It keeps the Avengers morally clean since they only wish to temporarily manipulate time to save their friends and avoids the timeline changing questions that existed through the Back to the Future series.  However it does make the finale questionable since I do not quite know if Steve Rogers stayed with Peggy in a branch timeline and then somehow reentered the main timeline after her death or if he simply grew old with Peggy under a different identity.  The film suggests the latter.  Either way these are questions that come up after the film ends and do not detract from a beautiful final pair of scenes that feel utterly earned.  The Russo brothers were wise to end this portion of the series by focusing on its most noble hero (who has played a key role in all four of their films).

The time heist borrows a trick from the most fascinating film of the Back to the Future trilogy by first having the heroes figure out the history of the stones and then inserting the heroes into past films of the series, most notably The Avengers.  Some of the most fun highlights are seeing what happened right after Loki was captured, the surprise cameo by Robert Redford (who had publicly retired months earlier, announcing The Old Man and the Gun as his last film) returning as Alexander Pierce and Steve Rogers in the elevator with all the Hydra henchmen.  The writers wisely avoid a restaging the fight since it could not have improved on the original and now Steve is a little more experienced and uses his wits instead.  Besides the film gives Steve a fight with himself right afterwards.

The trip to the 1970s was a nice diversion that shows Tony and Steve in a different setting.  The scene between Tony and Howard is nice without being overly sentimental and mirrors a little of Tony’s treatment of Peter in Spider Man: Homecoming.  Two little touches that stand out are Steve noticing a picture of himself before he became Captain America on Peggy’s desk, showing that she loves the real him, and seeing Hank Pym with long hair chewing out Steve when he things he is talking to an underling.

The most touching trip in this section of the film is Thor’s trip home to Asgard during the events of The Dark World in which he starts to get back on track by meeting his mother, who has been dead for ten years.  This gives a strong scene to the terrific Rene Russo.  Apart from giving Thor advice on his destiny, from which point he starts to put his life back together, Frigga just gives him maternal love which is what he really needs. Russo’s sad but strong look to Thor right before he leaves is even more powerful than when the hammer comes to him, as Frigga has surely sensed it is the last time either will ever see the other again. 

I had guessed that a sacrifice might be needed for the Avengers to obtain the Soul Stone and found Natasha’s ultimate act very moving, though it would have been even more powerful had Black Widow been released between in the period between Civil War and Infinity War when it is set.  Endgame makes clear how heavily the blip has impacted Natasha and she clearly feels at peace with the decision, although one of the most touching aspects to it is unlike Tony’s act later, Natasha is doing this on faith without any guarantee that her death will help bring the people back.

I want to give a little shout out to Don Cheadle, an electric performer who I first really noticed Out of Sight and who always gives completely committed performances, yet rarely gets a featured role in this series.  Cheadle is spot on in each line delivery and as such the writers give him a lot of the best lines since he does not worry about making Rhodes likable.  Cheadle’s suggestion of murdering Baby Thanos and the “Cheeze Whiz” line to Thor are highlights. 

The opening of the third act is expertly staged, with the reveal that people have likely returned since Clint’s phone rings, but as soon as he hears his wife Thanos attacks (we can only assume Clint’s been paying the bill on her plan in case she came back).  Therefore, while the Avengers are reacting to this new crisis the audience forgets about the people since we have not actually seen them.  This allows for the big reveal of the lost heroes returning via portal at a moment when Thanos’ minions seem to be about to destroy Steve Rogers who is trying to make a solo last stand.  I do not know how Dr. Strange knew where to get everyone but in the moment it works.  The return of the Thanos from Guardians of the Galaxy solves a narrative problem that the Avengers need to fight a big villain in the third act but killed him off near the beginning.  I think this was wise, if a little clumsy, since if Thanos had lived or had the Avengers simply decided that he was not worth pursing we would have been waiting for him to turn up.  When the 2014 Thanos reappears halfway through and starts figuring out what the Avengers are up to it leads to some genuine suspense, especially as this younger version seems more dangerous. 

The scale of the battle scene is impressive, but it is not as impactful as its counterpoint in Infinity War.  The dark sky, from the smoke from the collapsed building, and the sense that the Russo brothers are trying to squeeze in a moment for everyone, make this sequence feel a little overly CGI’d.  There are a couple of highlights I would like to point out though:

·       The three-way attack on Thanos by Thor, Captain America and Iron Man though I felt they should have been able to overpower him.

·       Wanda’s fierce fight with Thanos, foreshadowing her state of mind in Wandavision.

·       Tony’s impulsive hug to Peter, which calls back to his refusal to hug him in Spider Man Homecoming but also mirrors the hug he gave to his dad earlier.

·       The shot with all the female protagonists. 

The final struggle between Tony and Thanos has fun with the reveal of Thanos snapping only to discover that Tony has somehow lifted the stones and is ready to give his life to save everyone else.  Thanos’ reaction to both seeing his death through Nebula’s memory and the pending one is matter of fact.  He sits down and accepts his fate calmly.  Thanos, like all warriors, understands the stakes he is engaging in with his quest.

Wisely, Tony is too weak to talk and Pepper, who knows how Tony’s mind works, instinctively stays strong for him before he dies so that his last moment will be peaceful.  I think the post death scene of Tony giving his own eulogy via a recording lessens the impact slightly but is worth its own inclusion due to the closing line to his Morgan.

The cast for the funeral scene, with a slow-moving tracking shot near a beautiful lake, seems to include nearly every protagonist in the MCU who ever had a speaking role but it should have been a joint funeral for Tony and Natasha. 

Avengers Endgame is a superhero fantasy film, a drama and a time travel thriller that feels like a big finale, even though there are many more films to come.  The two key heroes of the Avengers (Iron Man and Captain America) have their stories concluded and there is plenty of framework for the newer characters to build on.  ****