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Avengers: Endgame
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth
DirectorS: Anthony & Joe Russo
Genre: Superhero
Rating: PG15
RUNTIME: 181 Mins
The less you know going into Avengers: Endgame, the more you’re likely to enjoy it. This review will try and be as spoiler-free as possible, but just know that Endgame is truly a story that needs to be experienced rather than read about.
What you take away from Endgame may depend on how deeply you’ve connected with any number of the 21 movies that preceded it. If you’re curious, for example, whether you need to have seen Captain Marvel to understand her inclusion here, it’s not required viewing in terms of plot but it does give context to her appearance in a way that might otherwise feel a little jarring if this is your first time meeting her. Overall, this is a movie that rewards your knowledge of the MCU in its entirety.
There’s little that can be said about the film without at least alluding to its twists, but what I can say, with certainty, is that Avengers: Endgame is a marvel, both in terms of narrative scale and sheer logistical ambition. In Infinity War, Thanos spoke of the need for balance, and Endgame achieves that goal with surprising confidence.
In the deft hands of screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, and directors Joe and Anthony Russo, the film walks a tightrope between high drama and cathartic comedy, offering some of the darkest and most emotionally honest scenes in the history of the MCU, alongside some of the most ridiculous and sublime.
There are fewer laugh-out-loud moments here than in Infinity War, but it’s certainly lighter and oftentimes more joyous than you might expect from a story that begins with the fallout from Thanos’ snap.
Endgame is a film that feels like it was made by fans, for fans – to the point where some scenes will undoubtedly be labelled as outright fan service. But it’s hard to view those moments as cynical pandering so much as earned and effective homages to the moments, characters and relationships we’ve grown so invested in over the past 11 years.
Several scenes truly feel like a Jack Kirby splash page come to life, and that’s an utterly exhilarating realisation, something that forces you to absorb the sheer scope of what Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige and his team have assembled: an interconnected cinematic endeavour beyond comparison.
While Infinity War did its best to juggle an enormous roster of heroes spanning the entirety of the MCU’s history, it’s no spoiler to say Endgame rightly narrows its focus to the original six Avengers (with an assist from their fellow survivors), giving them each a well-deserved moment in the spotlight.
Fans of the MCU’s holy trinity of Iron Man, Captain America and Thor should find plenty of iconic moments to satisfy them.
Much has been made of the film’s monstrous three-hour and one-minute length and, admittedly, it does feel like it’s dragging his heels a bit somewhere between the first and second acts. However, the last hour is dictionary-definition ‘epic.’
The main criticism that can be levelled against Endgame is one that has plagued most Marvel movies up to this point: an overreliance on overproduced CGI battles which, despite elaborate staging, can’t help but devolve into numbing, pixel-on-pixel slugfests. The film features several impressive set pieces that effectively ground the action with emotional stakes, and they prove to be some of the high points of the narrative, but when the focus widens to a larger canvas, some of the urgency and clarity is lost.
It’s in those moments where Endgame excels – as epic as some of the fight sequences are, we’re also given insight into our heroes’ mental states in a way we’ve rarely had time for in past team-ups; there are pauses for grief, guilt, love and longing, which ultimately makes the escalating action all the more rewarding.
Even though we know the MCU will continue in one form or another thanks to the prequels, sequels, and spinoffs that are already in development, there’s no denying that this is the end of an era – not just for our heroes, but for a generation of fans who have grown and changed and forged their own families alongside them. Endgame may be the final film Stan Lee appears in, but thanks to these indelible characters and the actors who breathed life into them, it feels like his momentous artistic legacy is in good hands.
Avengers: Endgame is easily the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s most ambitious, emotional and affecting film to date, somehow managing to tie up more than a decade of storytelling in a confident (and mostly coherent) climax – a hurdle that many other blockbuster franchises have stumbled over in their final runs.
It will inevitably provoke years of spirited debate among fans and an overreliance on messy CGI action blunts some of its impact, but in terms of pure heart, Endgame holds nothing back.
This may not have been the only way for Marvel to end the first chapter of its sprawling superhero saga, but when faced with 14,000,605 possible outcomes, it manages to be a surprising and satisfying one.
Now showing in all Bahrain’s cinemas.
Kristian’s verdict: 4/5
