Avengers: Endgame: Spoiler Analysis

It’s been almost a week now and so it’s about time we talked some spoilers. If you have seen Endgame trying to avoid spoilers is like walking across a minefield with a group of school children whilst all wearing clown shoes. Now let’s focus fully on the plot. I’m going to start from the beginning and work our way through.

Here’s another spoiler alert for the hell of it!

The opening scene does a really good job at bringing you back into the action with Hawkeye having a good time with his family then turning away only to see his family have vanished, to be replaced with some dust blowing in the wind. After the cold opening we get the scene from the trailer where Tony sends a message to Pepper about how much he loves her. This is also where Captain Marvel enters the movie and I was kind of shocked by how little impact she had on the plot. I said in my first review I don’t understand why I needed to see her stand-alone movie as she felt completely unnecessary. I understand how easily she could solve all of their problems because she’s so overpowered and that’s my issue! I also find it annoying that everyone just immediately accepts her and moves onto the plan to take out Thanos. Only Rhodey asks  the obvious question – where was she when Thanos killed half of the universe?

The remaining pissed off heroes quickly track down Thanos to his farm planet. He doesn’t put up any fight as he has already destroyed the stones and is just chilling and feeling quite proud of himself. Until Thor appropriately goes for his head. Five years have passed and this is when the story officially kicks off and it is when my problems arise. I’m fine with the characters either trying to fix what remains of their universe or settling down and starting a peaceful life. My only problem, which is always an issue with time skips, is that things aren’t properly developed or explained. It’s a starting position with no real depth.

Guys I swear I’ll be relevant in the next one.

We start with Ant-Man getting out of that ultra-microscopic world, he’s understandably completely confused and the sequence at the memorial was really good. Ant-Man finds Cap and Black Widow and here is where he discusses the possibility of time travel through Ant-Man shrinking. I had been considering for a year as to how they might beat Thanos and, for some reason, time travel never came to mind. Another strength for this movie, it’s not predictable.

After that Cap and the crew go searching for the original gang which is kind of reminiscent of the first movie when Nick Fury and Black Widow did the same thing. I liked seeing that Tony has finally settled down with Pepper, a promise that was forgotten about in Iron Man 3. (A movie I’m convinced the Marvel execs want you to forget about.) At first I wasn’t really sure with Tony’s reasoning for abandoning his second life, just so he can bring back Spider-Man. Now I’m fine with it as it is consistent with his character.

The Hulk and Bruce Banner merging into one character felt a bit odd, from the last movie especially. Whatever, I’m cool with it. What they did with Thor I found extremely hilarious. They put a new spin on Thor’s obligatory shirtless scene by giving him a beer belly and now he looks like The Big Lebowski, which even Tony points out. Also Valkyrie and Korg are miraculously still alive, which I kind of wish was explained better. Hawkeye going rogue is a bit of a dark turn, but I don’t think they made the most of this storyline. I understand the motives, but his five years of going rogue added nothing to the movie or his character. Once he’s back with The Avengers he’s pretty much the same guy. I think this could have been easily fixed with a little more emphasis on his darker side.

It was a just a phase.

Now we’re up to the big plan of going back in time and collecting the stones so they can bring back their friends. This is where the movie picks up and becomes an entertaining ride and it’s also where things get really messy and confusing. The characters in the movie admit time travel makes no sense so it’s them pretty much saying that you don’t take this bit too seriously or the whole thing will just collapse. I’m not going to complain about any of the time travel stuff because that’ll take up half of this review and I don’t want to lose anyone. I loved the scenes working on the master plan and testing the time machine as it’s just the characters cracking jokes and messing around, similar to the party scene in Age of Ultron.

The Time Travelling Friends realise that three of the stones are all conveniently in New York where the final battle of the first Avengers movie took place. Bruce Banner talks to Tilda Swinton’s character from Doctor Strange and it’s here that she brings up that taking a stone from their reality will mess with their timeline, but Bruce promises he’ll put it back before taking it from her. I don’t think that’s how alternate realities work… Lets not worry about that because we get Captain America verses Captain America and that was cool!

I really enjoyed the whole sequence in the Avengers Tower like with Ant-Man pointing out how the Hydra guys obviously look like bad guys, the Hulk being forced to take the stairs and Tony telling Cap his suit from The Avengers is crap. (Which it is.) Loki escaping with the Tesseract is never brought up again because I’m sure that’ll mess with some sort of reality. The good thing about it is Cap and Tony get some great moments in 1970. This is where the CGI work on de-aging people really standouts as it looks really good. I liked the one on one with Tony and his dad as it’s a great character moment. Cap watching the love of his life through the window I found quite devastating. It’s a good thing her niece wasn’t in this movie or I imagine it would be a very different reaction.

He’s so happy to see you.

Next up is Thor and Rocket getting that black gas stuff from Natalie Portman, who I didn’t expect to ever see return in these movies. Referencing Thor: The Dark World this much in one movie is pretty brave. Thor and his mum had a nice scene together though I was a bit disappointed that Thor never got a scene with his ex-fling. Oh well, at least we got Thor and Mjolnir together again. The last two stones are on two different planets. The first planet being that one where Star-Lord dances around like a complete idiot on. (The movie even compliments this.) This is where 2014 Thanos, Nebula and Gamora get involved in the story where they find out they’re from the future or whatever. I’m a bit iffy on pre-Infinity War Thanos returning here, but I’m guessing we needed to fit that final battle in somehow.

The other planet is where Thanos killed his favourite daughter for a piece of jewellery. Obviously Black Widow and Hawkeye aren’t going to go that far, but they’re definitely going to fight for the honour of jumping to their doom. Black Widow pulls the short straw and, to be honest, I didn’t really feel that much for her death. She was never a character I really cared for as she very much remained the same from her first appearance to her last. Gamora’s death works so much better because she was more than just the girl member on the team. I found Hawkeye’s and the other Avenger’s reactions to her demise more tragic.

Maybe dying wasn’t the best option for me.

Now that they have all of the stones, Hulk puts on their own hand made gauntlet and snaps everyone back. It’s confirmed that everyone is alive with Hawkeye’s wife calling him. Since this ending isn’t dramatic enough Alternate Thanos destroys The Avengers base and, as cheesy as it sounds, The Endgame is set into motion! Of course everyone survives the blast and the three top tier heroes get to work on Thanos. Here is where you get the biggest piece of fan service in the movie and that’s Captain America using Mjolnir to kick Thanos’ ass. Don’t want to overstate, but that was awesome!

Thanos releases his massive army on the defeated Cap and that’s when all of the dead superheroes and many many more come out to fight.  Let me remind you I do enjoy these superhero movies and this final sequence I will embarrassingly admit made me geek out a bit. The battle focuses on one character at a time as they do something cool which is perfect as you always have a good layout of the battle and it’s nice to be able to tell what’s happening. Previously deceased characters get some spotlight here like Spider-Man, Star-Lord, Scarlet Witch, Black Panther and so on. Also Captain Marvel returns and once again flies through a cruiser with no effort required. (I can’t help it, I’m still wondering where was she for the entire movie?)

Even with all of the support on their side and Captain Marvel!! Thanos still somehow comes out on top by actually getting a hold of the 6 stoned gauntlet. This is where Doctor Strange’s one shot victory comes into play and after rewatching the movie it makes complete sense and works very effectively. Strange said he would always put the stone before their lives. He saw the future and he knew Tony would play a vital role in defeating Thanos, which also explains during the final battle why he couldn’t tell Tony how they beat him. As we all know, Iron Man has the stones and snaps Thanos and his entire army out of existence. Tony Stark dies doing the most selfless thing that anyone could possibly think of, which is quite a turn around from where he started. Definitely didn’t think this would happen and yep it was pretty damn sad.

It was about time an actual main character died in this universe and why not be the first.

After the funeral the movie keeps on going with Peter Parker going back to school, completely ignoring that some of his peeps may not be teenagers anymore. Thor lets Valkyrie rule his kingdom so he can join the Guardians of the Galaxy on their next fun adventure. Star-Lord isn’t very cool with that and also he has to completely restart his relationship with Gamora, which I will admit completely sucks. Cap agrees to return the stones back to their rightful places. (Don’t question how he’ll do it because I spent about an hour on how on earth will he return the soul stone.) Hulk is worried that Cap didn’t return right away, but we discover Cap has become a 100 year old fossil. Old Cap passes the shield onto Falcon and the last shot of the movie has Cap finally dancing with Peggy, which is an amazing way to end his part in the story and the movie.

This is the end of a chapter and I’m presuming the end of Phase 3. A much better way to end a story than whatever Last Jedi did. I’m not really sure what to expect from here.  For big bads you can’t really top Thanos and I can’t think of many substitutes. Their most marketable characters are either retired or dead and now their roles are been passed down to less interesting supporting characters. I think since my time on the internet only the two Avengers movies have been this great because I don’t know if you remember but the road to Endgame was so shockingly bad. We’ve got a new Spider-Man movie coming up which I’m worried about as it looks like a bad Straight-to-DVD Disney sequel kind of like what Ant-Man and The Wasp was. Hopefully Marvel offers more Avengers: Infinity War, Iron Man 3, Thor: Ragnarok and both Guardians films and less Doctor Strange, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Thor: The Dark World, both Ant-Man movies and Captain Marvel.

Hey Marvel, here’s someone who needs a do over!

That’s it! Comment all you like about this movie on this post. I guess mention your favourite moment or whatever and where you think Marvel will take this franchise. I’m currently working on my first anniversary post and I’m looking for some Q&A questions. Until next time, I have been The Blog Complainer, signing out.