shelidonMay 1, 20194 Comments on Avengers Endgame

Well, it has been a ride I’ve enjoyed tremendously and it was more than hinted that this movie was going to be the end of a narrative arc and, hopefully, the beginning of something else.
I was expecting something highly emotional, epic, with tears to shed for our favorite characters and, maybe, a couple of surprises.

Was I disappointed?

Well, yes. And for the first time in the whole story-arc I have to say that I did not like what I saw. If I have to rank this movie, it falls below every other, probably even below stuff like the second Thor. But let me proceed in an orderly fashion, without rants. Heavy spoilers ahead.

The time jumps were a good idea. Of course you just couldn’t jump into hyperspace (or however it’s called in the Marvel Universe), grab Thanos and kick his ass just because you now have Carol Danvers. That would have been extremely weak. And we had a hint this was going quantum since Dr Strange apologizing to Stark and saying that it was the only way. What I did not approve of, was the relentless fan service and self celebration we had to endure for almost half of the movie. It was a good chance to tell new stories, or reveal some backstory that would lay the foundation for something yet to come, instead it’s pretty much all nostalgia and comic relief. It feels little more than a fan-made short on Youtube.

Showing how characters have changed was a good idea too. It’s the first heavy defeat they suffer, with lots of losses, and it’s only fair that Hawkeye would go bananas after loosing all his family (seriously, “only” half of the population was wiped out: how were the odds on that?). The first sequences, with a broken Tony in a wheelchair, physically consumed and shivering, should win Robert Downey Jr an Oscar. It’s also interesting, in the aftermath, that Tony grabs happiness and Thor falls to pieces. Only, Thor’s trauma gets diminished behind a heavy patina of belly jokes and it’s unfair to a character that started up as being too serious and now is obviously becoming too comic to survive in an Universe that already has lots of comic reliefs to count on.

On top of that, too much Comedy makes Jack a dull boy. I appreciate a good joke and my favorite movies, aside from the first Avengers and the fist Iron Main for being the first, are probably Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor Ragnarock. That’s not the point. Point is, comedy is good when it leads to something. Here we have a lot of pointless jokes, Thor wearing the crown jewel for them but not being the only one: I can’t stand Ant Man, I literally can’t stand him. He made me regret the loss of Spiderman and that’s saying something.

The whole double Nebula stuff was also good: you get the chance to explore a character you are clearly betting on for the future. It’s also good to bring back a Thanos that hasn’t lost his will to fight and that can only be a Thanos from the past, although it comes across as a little too emotionally involved, where the good things of this villain were his almost complete lack of passion, his professionalism (if you may). He really felt like destroying half of the universe was the balanced thing to do and even demonstrated respect for the adversary with Iron Man: how come that now he would “enjoy” destroying Earth? It’s a chance wasted, in the name of easy writing, and all of a sudden Thanos is a villain like any other.

The arrival of Professor Hulk was heavily anticipated and I was not looking forward to it. If you remember, I’ve never been a fan of Hulk in general, in the comic books, and I was ecstatic in seeing someone finally making it work. The first Avengers was a beauty on how they treated the character, Age of Ultron gave him the light he deserved and Thor Ragnarock was simply a delight. Endgame doesn’t make justice to the work done in Infinity War: we’ve seen Banner struggling to have a conversation with his counterpart and the solution seems to have been completely wiping away the green giant’s personality by incorporating his body with the doctor’s mind. I can’t be the only one disturbed by this solution. I felt it was a choice made out of convenience, for the lack of time to dive deep into a situation in which Banner and the Hulk would have to come to compromise, needing the mind of one and the strength of the other in order to master the gauntlet. That’s a story I would have liked to see, instead of Thor’s mum and Stark’s father.

Yet, I have to admit that the movie has powerful sequences.
Hawkeye and the Widow fighting for whom has to sacrifice himself for the other is bound to give you goosebumps. And yet, since in order to get the Soul Stone you have to sacrifice what you love most, it wouldn’t have hurt to dive deep into their relationship and show how much they mean to each other in spite of their love interest. Can Disney say that friendship can matter more than love? Apparently not.
Dr Strange bringing everyone back and their army marching through the portals is a scene so grand I can’t seem to fathom another chance to see anything like that in any movie. Even if it leads to the biggest and most epic football match in movie history.
I was even moved by Tony hugging Spinderman (and you know I hate the little sucker).

And the ending, with main characters finally being able to rest after saving the universe, was really the only possible ending to all of this.
Still.
I am close to anger for the wasted opportunity of making this even a more beautiful story. It’s the ending lots of people wanted, maybe it’s the ending we needed, but it’s not the ending we deserved. We deserved better.