Twenty two movies in counting have been building up to what is honestly the biggest movie the MCU has ever dished out. Avengers Endgame is said by many to be a rollercoaster of emotions and may honestly be the most praised and successful movies to ever grace the silver screen. So is it gonna be bad for me to say that I think it's kinda overrated? Okay now before you get mad at me let me just say that this is far from a bad movie. In fact, it's quite spectacular for the most part and a lot of the moments that are truly awesome are some of the MCU’s most iconic moments. With that being said though there were sadly some things that kept this movie from being a true masterpiece when taking a step back and looking at the finer details of Endgame.
Taking place after the events of Infinity War, Thanos (Josh Brolin) has snapped away half the population of the universe. Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) and Nebula (Karen Gillan) are saved by Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) and brought the Avengers building where other characters like Rocket Racoon (Bradley Cooper), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Black Widow (Scarlett Johanson) and Captain America (Chris Evans) come together to find Thanos and reverse his actions. Unfortunately on Thanos’s hideout on a distant planet, the Avengers are shocked to discover that Thanos has disintegrated the stones to atoms which leads to Thor killing off Thanos in anger. Five years pass and the population on earth tries to adapt to their unfortunate reality when suddenly Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) as Ant-Man comes out of his deep sleep from the quantum realm and discovers what has happened to the earth. Scott comes to the Avengers with a groundbreaking discovery of time travel and the remaining avengers with the addition of Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffulo) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) devise a plan to time travel to certain periods of time to retrieve the infinity stones and undo the actions of Thanos but there may be some complications that get in the way for their plan to succeed.
So what is it about this movie that seems rather lacking compared to Infinity War? One of the first things that seemed to throw me off is the first hour of the film as it goes way too slow in getting to the actual meat of the story which is the time travel portion of the movie. There are still some interesting bits that are needed and or established in the narrative, but everything in between is a lot of exposition and talking which is unnecessary and could have been shortened to get straight to the point. Another thing that throws me off is the movie's explanation of time travel. I don’t mind new ways of how time travel works as it's not like the Back to the Future movies have set the rules of time travel in stone. The problem is that the movie tries to explain their way of time travel in a complicated and not that well explained way and because of that it forces time travel nitpickers like myself to point out all the time paradoxes and plot holes that sadly distract from the movie's enjoyment.
With all that being said though, there are still a lot of awesome moments that are well worth the wait. The time heist is actually pretty cool despite all the movie's gaping plot holes as it's nice to revisit time periods previously seen in other MCU movies such as the 2012 New York Battle and the scene where Star-Lord finds the power stone. Also, I hope I'm not giving anything away but even with all the problems previously mentioned, almost all of them are forgiven for honestly one of, if not the best final battle scene in any MCU movie. I’m not gonna say why, but once you see it, you’ll completely understand.
Most of the characters on screen are coming to an end after an over ten year journey, especially Iron Man and Captain America. It's interesting to see how far those characters have come through all their highs and lows and their character journey's through this movie are well executed and their endings respectively are satisfying and rather emotional. Although it's great to get the characters who survived the snap to work off of each other, I kinda wish that some characters got more screen time including Captain Marvel who is only brought in for a few scenes which is kinda a waste of a unique opportunity. Another thing I kinda wish was altered is Thor’s character as he is basically one running joke that he’s fat and depressed and after a while it becomes rather embarrassing and overused. I get what they are trying to do but it would have been better if they treated Thor's character arc with more respect and seriousness.
The Cinematography may not quite have the epic scale of Infinity War, but there are still plenty of remarkable scenes that are impressive to watch. When the time heist begins there are plenty of opportunities to get a different visual perspective of a familiar scene from a different MCU movie which can lead to some funny and interesting moments. The real star of the show is the third act which again I can’t give too much away, but it is action-packed, groundbreaking and even emotional all at the same time. Speaking of action, when it does happen it's clever, creative and all around fun. It may even be some of the most memorable action in an MCU movie yet. Getting composer Alan Siverstri seemed to be a no brainer as he did a remarkable job scoring the last Avengers movie and luckily it paid off big time as the score is another great score that brings the fun and even emotions after being with these superheroes for over ten years in counting.
I might be in the minority in saying this movie is overrated, but that is still not saying all that much as Avengers Endgame still isn’t without its remarkable moments that in some ways save this movie from being any what of a lesser product. Its emotional and fun storytelling, mostly lovable characters, cool action-packed cinematography and a gripping music score make this movie still worth watching for MCU fans especially knowing how some of the actors involved are coming to an end of such a long cinematic journey with its high and lows. In fact that's probably the best way to describe the MCU. they may not always be perfect, but when they get it right they really get it right. There is no doubt that the MCU has changed the landscape of cinema and it looks like their journey is far from being over.
(Final Grade A-)