Avengers: Endgame Film Review

A Tragic Cinematic Opera at its Finest

*** WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS ***

Just about the entire planet, perhaps as many as those who were caught in Thanos’s snap, have been waiting with anticipation to the sequel of Avengers: Infinity War and now it’s finally here. This is the ultimate film for fanboys, fan-girls, film buffs, normies, anyone who has a pulse as they sit down to watch the unfolding and end to some epic storytelling in cinematic history. What we are about to witness is perhaps an epic tragic opera told in separate acts and I’m not sure if the Russo brothers didn’t intentionally design it that way.

The film opens up with Hawk-eye and his family enjoying an outdoor moment. He is teaching his daughter how to shoot a bow while the rest of his family are running around waiting to enjoy some hot dogs. No time is wasted in this first Act when tragedy strikes. Hawk-eye turns his attention away from his daughter to his sons and poof, his daughter is not there when he turns back to her. He turns back to the rest of his family and poof, they aren’t there either. Confusion and pain register on his face as he knows that what he is about to experience is bad. He is living the day of the Thanos snap. The opera has begun.

We then find ourselves with Tony and Nebula in space. We have no idea how long they’ve been marooned on the ship but suffice to say, it’s been a stretch. Rations have dwindled to the point that the scarcity of food had come to eating mere crumbs. While Nebula may survive longer than Tony as she is mainly machine parts, Tony’s life is teetering in the balance. Act 2 of the opera is singing when all of a sudden, a bright light comes forth and stirs a weak Tony Stark. It’s Carol Danvers. She rescues Tony and Nebula by bringing them back to earth.

Now Carol Danvers is a divisive character. For the most part, she’s not a fan favorite and it was feared that she would dominate this story and become a distraction. While she does play a contributing role, she does not consume too much time from the main characters although her character was a bit arrogant and abrasive when she was with the Avengers team members. Her appearance was tolerable and you can sit there and deal with her because this film is worth putting up with Brie Larson. She does say a couple of lines that just flies in the face of arrogance though this isn’t a part of the operatic tragedy.

The journey continues as Rocket and Nebula figure out where Thanos is living. He is living a life of an agrarian, quite a different contrast from a person who wiped out half of the world’s population without any remorse. The team burst in on his home and quickly subdue him. The infinity stones have been destroyed by Thanos thus preventing any type of restoration of the population. But before any other alternative can be derived from Thanos, Thor makes good on Thanos’s instruction to Thor from Infinity War and that was to go for the head. Thor, in lightning speed, cuts off Thanos’s head. You start to feel the opera grow to a climatic crescendo with the dispatching of Thano’s head. Are we appalled or are we more vigilantist by six degrees of separation?

Scott Lang returns to the world thanks to a rat. He’s been gone for five years. Time for him has only moved for five hours. He has no clue as to what has transpired and when he sees his name on a monument stone of other people who have disappeared, he finds his way back to his now grownup daughter. He soon comes to realize that he may have the answers to the snap. He heads to Avenger’s headquarters where they are surprised to see him. He lays out his theory to the team but they aren’t savvy to the science so they head to Tony who is now a father to a five-year-old daughter named Morgan. Fatherhood has made Tony blissful. He has not hunted in him when the proposal is laid out. He distances himself from the notion that it is anything but feasible. The ideas though starts to haunt him.

The team then goes to Bruce Banner as their second top brain to pitch their idea. Banner is now embracing his Hulk side and lives openly as a green skin with Banner’s brains. He’s a totally different person. He’s an inviting man, takes selfies with fans but seems to be more introspective. In this operatic twist, we see that Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow and Banner/Hulk are at a distance. We can feel it, the sense of estrangement, of loss, of things lost in the fire. We can’t dwell on this now, the stakes are too heavy.

We saw this introspection with Tony and Pepper as well. The snap left more than just physical scars on our heroes. Thor is sporting a beer gut and is totally out of shape. He’s grown out his hair and his beard is halfway down his chest. He looks more like a younger version of Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top. Ant-man provides 90 percent of the comic relief in a world of morass and no hope. Rocket is the coolest raccoon that gives point to Thor as he smacks Thor who has an emotional breakdown. Hawk-eye becomes a Ronin as he dispatches bad guys as he tries to compensate for the loss of his family. Everybody has some sort of post-traumatic stress after the snap and sometimes it’s subtle and sometimes it’s in your face.

They take turns tag teaming the leadership roles. Sometimes it’s Black Widow, sometimes it’s Tony, sometimes it’s Cap and sometimes it’s Rocket if he’s flying the ship.

Tony finally comes around with the idea of manipulating time. He and Banner/Hulk devise the instrumentation and the team sets out to prevent Thanos from even collecting any of the stones. They break up into teams and set out to gather up the stones. Cap and Tony go back to 1970 to a military base where Cap sees Peggy Carter from behind glass. Tony sees his father and speaks with him. With Cap and Tony, you are taken on this emotional roller coaster that’s layered. Although Cap never speaks to Peggy, his love for her is palpable. The same holds true for Tony as well. Even though collecting the stone is important, the interpersonal dynamic is also important and is setting us up for something else down the road. We also get the chance to see the real Jasper who is his father chauffeur.

War Machine and Nebula is teamed up on a planet but things don’t go as smoothly. Her earlier version of herself has linked to her and her counterpart reads what she is reading. This gives Thanos much needed Intel on what the team is up to. Five years younger Nebula replaces five-year-old Nebula in the team.

Hawk-eye and Natasha run into the Red Skull on another planet that holds the soul stone. We all know what is required to get the soul stone and what transpires is an epic turn in this operatic telling. We experience the loss of a beloved one, Natasha Romanoff. Hawk-eye wanted to sacrifice himself, perhaps to be with his family. But Natasha saw that should they be successful and retrieved all the stones and reverse the snap, he would have his family back. For her, she had no family and if she were to live, the ability to have children was taken away from here when she was in the Soviet Union program. We’ve never experienced a loss of an original team member before. This can’t be real.

We only begin to feel this loss when all of the team return back to home base. Cap is devastated and Banner/Hulk is even more devastated by the loss of Black Widow. They become more determined to see this project through. Black Widow left a tremendous hole that will not be filled. Cap nor Banner/Hulk had the chance to say goodbye.

The stones are assembled but before they can implement the snap, five years young Nebula opens a portal for Thanos to come through. This is epic as the headquarters is obliterated by Thanos forces. The team survives and battle their way out to fight Thanos and it’s epic. Banner/Hulk had made the snap earlier and slowly, during the battle with Thanos forces do we see the first sign of restoration. A portal opens up and out walks Black Panther and his sister and then a whole army of MCU heroes. This is pound for pound the best battle action sequence that’s ever been done on planet earth. And here is a surprise, Captain America picks up Thor’s old hammer that he collected while on Asgard collecting the other stone and uses it. Thor even said, “I knew it.” What did he even mean by that? Was its something I missed in an earlier Avengers movie> Cap even tried to pick up Thor’s hammer in The Avengers movie but he couldn’t do it but now he is using it and kicking Thanos ass.

As this battle ensues, Thanos gains the upper hand and has the gauntlet of infinity stones. Tony, looking over to Dr. Strange as he holds up one finger, goes back in to do battle with Thanos. He gets him in a clutch and Thanos pushes him back. Thanos goes to make his snap and nothing happens. Tony has the stones and makes the snap. Thanos and his minions disappear. Tony gets a dose of gamma rays that Banner/Hulk could absorb but not anyone else. Tony becomes the ultimate operatic tragedy. Slowly it unfolds. Pepper is there doing battle earlier with the minions. She comes to Tony’s side and we get to witness our collective hearts be broken by someone who has taken us on a ride for the past 10 years. We were with him from the start. We saw his arrogance turn into humanity. We saw this playboy become an adoring husband and father. We saw this mortal human become a superhero. Goodbye, farewell, and amen, Tony Stark.

In the waning minutes of Endgame, we get the chance to see some chapters close on our friends and heroes. Steve Rogers goes back in time to return the Infinity Stones back to their rightful places but he doesn’t come back. Instead, he stays behind to find his one true love, Peggy Carter, whom he marries and grow old with. He passes off his shield to Falcon. Ant-man is in bliss with his daughter and the Wasp.

...The procession moved on the shouting is over

The fabulous freaks are leaving town.

They are driven by a strange desire

Unseen by the human eye.

The carnival is over

We sat and watched

As the moon rose again

For the very first time…

-The Carnival Is Over – Dead Can Dance

Grade: A+