“Avengers: Endgame” was just released and stars practically everyone who has ever turned up in the MCU films. Anthony and Joe Russo directed this little piece which was written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. It does seem a little surprising this was written by only two people.
This follows up from what happened in “Infinity Wars” where Thanos wipes out haf of the universal population including several heroes from MCU, including Black Panther and Spider-Man. Thanos was portrayed by Josh Brolin, who does present a pretty multi-layered villain.
Unsurprisingly, there were plenty of strong performances, although I was not that impressed with a somewhat annoying direction that was taken with Chris Hemsworth’s Thor. It wasn’t Hemsworth being a bad actor, but Thor’s reaction to the tragedy brought on by Thanos was a little off putting. He redeems himself well enough by the climactic battle sequence though so it’s hard to hate him.
Also, I am not that sure I really like Banner being in such control of his Hulk persona onscreen. I know that happened in the comic series, and it’s fine there, but seeing Mark Ruffalo’s face being so clearly on the Hulk frame and with green flesh is a little unsettling. A moment of regret over his gratuitous smashing of the earlier films is pretty funny. I do think Ruffalo makes a great Bruce Banner though and would not mind seeing him in future films
Robert Downey Jr. is also quite good. Really, everyone holds up well hen it comes to their performances, but no one had any doubt that they could pull that off.
Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel fortunately did not take over the screen as much as I feared she would. Her solo movie was not bad, so I didn’t necessarily dread her inclusion in this thing in spite of the silly comments the actress herself makes in interviews.
There was a girl power moment that actually came off as rather cool during the big battle. I am look forward to the next Black Panther movie because I actually really liked Letitia Wright’s Shuri and hope to see more of her. She pretty well stole the movie from led actor Chadwick Boseman, in my opinion. She was great there and in the previous Avengers film Wright was not really given much screen time here, but that’s understandable considering the enormous cast of characters involved.
The visual effects were amazing. The final battle scene was chaotic but not so much of a mess where it was hard to follow.
There were a lot of plot threads to tie up, and some directions did not grab me as much as I hoped. However, the movie does hit the right emotional buttons for the most part. The music score really helped the impact of those moments. The girl next to me got pretty weepy, but that moment just before the climactic battle scene was rather special when a lot more familiar figures were showing up.
There were some surprises I enjoyed such as some characters being more pivotal to the story than I would have expected. Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man being the prime example here. Karen Gillan’s Nebula was also more important in this movie than I would have expected, but since she is a good actress and a Doctor Who alum, I didn’t mind.
A lot more works in this film than doesn’t. I do have some minor gripes as to what I would have liked to have seen happened or how the problem was resolved, but the smashed records and overall critical acclaim is still very much earned.
Although this film wraps up an important phase of the MCU journey, they are not done yet. New Spider-Man film is about to be released Apparently, Dr. Strange and Black Panther will appear in other films as well.
The film left me with a little exasperation at times, but is still a major triumph for the cast, crew, and studio. It is too bad that Stan Lee did not live long enough to see this release. I hope he was able to see it somehow before his demise. In short, go see it! It is a great time!
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