It’s finally here!

Yay!

…I guess!

I gotta say, it was a bit of a challenge carving out a three-and-a-half-hour block from my dad’s and my schedules to go see this finally, but we did!

And…I mean it’s definitely a movie!

Endgame is the culmination of a whole lotta Marvel cinematic universe films, all leading up to this huge and ridiculously long finale. The pressure was certainly on for the Russo brothers, directing this super monstrosity of a movie.

Did it live up to the massive hype surrounding it?

…

I mean let’s save my opinion for later.

NOTE: I will try to keep the following two sections as spoiler-free as possible, as always, but if you really want to see this film, it’s probably best to go in completely blind. Unless you’re like me, and you actually prefer having spoilers sometimes so you know what you have to put up with. I didn’t get that for Endgame, and…well…

NOTE 2: After completing this post and going back to re-read it, I have decided that I think you should have this movie spoiled for you. There’s nothing groundbreaking about it, and the whole spoiler campaign was just so you would throw more money at the production companies. Don’t do that.

NOTE 3: Also also, the first half of this review is mostly incoherent rambling and angry ranting because…well, you’ll see. The second half is a lot more poetic. This movie brought out a lot of different sides of me. Oh well.

Anyway, let’s get on with it. Spoiler warning. But also like…it’s whatever.

THE PLOT

The film actually starts back before the big ol’ snap that ruined everything, with Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) having a peaceful, fun BBQ with his family–so you know everything’s about to go wrong. And it does! His entire family disappears because of the snap. So. Yeah.

Then we cut to: the rest of the team! Following the rather catastrophic events of Avengers: Infinity War, the team is a bit of a mess. Luckily, they’re able to locate Thanos (Josh Brolin) by reading some kind of unique energy signature that the infinity stones give off. They trace him to some other planet where he’s set up some kind of peaceful farm life for himself, but the Avengers ain’t havin it.

Determined to reunite the stones to bring back everyone they lost, they drill Thanos about the location of the stones. Thanos, rather frustratingly, admits that he actually used the stones…to destroy the stones. Their work was done, he says, so he nearly destroys himself in the process destroying the stones.

Fed up, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) slices his head off. Ha. Get it. Because if only he’d done that last movie, everything would have been fine. Ha. HAHA.

We then cut to 5 years later, and everything is…it’s still a mess. The team has all but separated. Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) remains at the Avengers base, overseeing operations of…some kind from afar, determined to keep making a difference. I guess now she suddenly has some plot line about feeling useless and needing to be a hero, and literally the only reason this is suddenly introduced is for the ridiculous “payoff” later on.

BUT I DIGRESS, EVERYTHING IS FINE.

Anyway, Captain America/Steve Rogers/Cap (Chris Evans) shows up and is all “I love pretending everything is fine, don’t you?” Basically everyone’s just really depressed.

At some point we cut to some kind of…impound lot? Storage lot? I dunno. Anyway, it’s the Ant-Man van! A rat is moving about the dashboard, accidentally activates the quantum realm portal, and suddenly iiiiiiiit’s Ant-Man/Scott Lang (Paul Rudd)!

Lang, having been in the quantum realm since the end of his second movie (Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) and Dr. Pym (Michael Douglas) were supposed to bring him back, but they, too, disappeared in the snap), is a little disoriented. For Lang, it hasn’t been 5 years, only about 5 hours or so. He races around, trying to figure out what’s happening, and stumbles across a…very detailed memorial for all those lost in the snap (I mean, they go out of their way to show what a post-apocalyptic setting we’re in since we lost half of all life, but somehow we were able to build such a detailed, nice-looking memorial? Did they just need some way for Lang to see his name and freak out? Yeah. Yeah that’s it). Confused because he finds his own name there, Lang heads to Avengers HQ.

Lang is hyped because he thinks there has to be some way to go back in time and fix everything. After all, time works differently in the quantum realm, so there must be some way for it to work! But they need a real man of science on this: they need…Iron Man/Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.).

Aforementioned Stark is living out his days in a very peaceful cabin in the woods with Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow) and their daughter, Morgan (Lexi Rabe). Having been brought back from space and the literal edge of death five years prior by Captain Marvel (Brie Larson–by the way, don’t get used to her. She does almost nothing in the movie, despite being advertised as a major player), Stark isn’t really keen on abandoning this family he finally has to go chasing down bad guys on a hunch that may not even work.

The team is distressed, but they ultimately leave Stark alone to find the other science man on the team: the Hulk/Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo). Banner has…somehow…managed to figure out how to be both Hulk and himself at…the same time? Anyway. Banner’s down to help, but he doesn’t entirely know what he’s doing, and he says as much. The team doesn’t care–they want their friends back.

Stark, meanwhile, has been unable to stop thinking about this whole time travel thing. He uses Friday (Kerry Condon) to run different…tests…of some sort. I dunno, it’s time travel, so it’s not explained in a way that us normal folk can understand. He somehow figures it out though, I guess, and he tells Pepper that if she doesn’t want him to go, he won’t. Pepper, knowing him really well, tells him to go.

Stark shows up just in time, as Banner turned Lang into a baby, an old man, a kid, and finally himself again. They hunt down some other team members, including Hawkeye who is an assassin suddenly? And Thor who um…wears a fat suit the entire film. Yyyyep.

Anyway, they figure out that there are basically four different timelines they need to go to in order to steal the Infinity Stones before Thanos is able to gather them. There’s some kind of half-assed explanation given as to why they can’t just go back in time and kill Thanos as a baby, which I’ll get into later. Basically, they decide that the only thing they can do is get the Infinity Stones first, snap to bring everyone back, and then destroy the stones.

Of course, nothing goes according to plan, and three hours of ~hilarity~ ensues.

THE REVIEW

I wanted to like it. I really did.

I think part of the problem is that it was so hyped up. I mean even after it was finally out and people were screaming to “not spoil the endgame,” positive reviews and incredible box office returns were flooding the Internet. How could you not be excited even as a casual Marvel fan??

The problem with hype is that it inevitably leads to disappointment. With so many fans, there’s just no way to please them all, and I get that. It just sucks being in the demographic that dislikes it– these characters you’ve come to love are handled in a way that’s just disappointing to you. But everyone else seems to like it, so maybe it’s just you…

Anyway. I wanted to like it. I really didn’t.

And the thing is…I kind of liked the first 2/3 of it? I love time travel plots, and it was so fun seeing the callbacks to previous films and characters (especially ones I actually liked). I loved seeing how the characters dealt with the events of Infinity War. I mean, they lost, and they’ve never really lost before? And they all handled it so differently.

But I realized as the movie went on and more and more plot twists occurred…I wasn’t enjoying myself anymore. Things were happening left and right that were never explained, tons of pointless things happened, characters were poorly handled, and the movie broke its own established time travel rules?? I just…why?????

The other disappointing thing has been the creators’ responses to the questions. Instead of saying things like “I see how it could be interpreted this way, and while that wasn’t our intention, we’re sorry for the hurt that may have caused” they say things like “no no no, you’re wrong, this is what it means and we’re right and you’re wrong because we made it and you didn’t, now shut up and go buy another movie ticket.”

(Okay slight paraphrasing, but you get the idea)

I just left the theater feeling really disappointed and honestly really angry. I just felt like Infinity War was handled relatively well, and don’t even get me started on how great Civil War was…but this just…eh.

Again, I liked parts of it!

But the rest of it really killed the movie for me.

So here’s the deal: because this damn movie is three hours long, it doesn’t really make sense to split up the categories like I usually do because there’s just too much information. That, and these are characters who’ve been in plenty of other films prior to this, so…well, we’ll get there. What I’ll do is simply talk about sections I liked (there aren’t a lot) and sections that disappointed me (there are many). So without further ado…major, major spoiler warning now in effect.

(But really like…it’s genuinely not that big of a deal. Seriously. Spoil yourself. This movie doesn’t deserve all the secrecy it had surrounding it to force you to buy a movie ticket)

THE TIME TRAVEL

So let’s start with probably the biggest elephant in the room: the time travel.

Because we needed to have some all-out epic battle at the end involving Thanos, we couldn’t have the Avengers simply go back in time and kill Thanos as a baby. You can’t do that because superhero fans don’t pay to see plots that make sense, they pay to see epic battles!!! Raaaaaaaaaah!!!

*ahem* anyway, because of that, the time travel plot line is basically explained as such: everything you think you know about time travel because of incredible movies like Back to the Future is WRONG. Going back in the past to change something doesn’t change anything in your future…because I guess then that past becomes your future, so nothing actually changes because it’s just your future as always? Anyway, the idea is that when you change something in the past, you actually just end up creating an entirely different, separate timeline. So the idea is that even if they want back, killed Thanos as a baby…that would just create a different timeline where baby Thanos died, but when they went back to their own time, the snap will still have occurred and all their friends are still gone. Thanos wasn’t killed as a baby in their timeline, he was killed in a different one.

So they decide instead, they need to go back in time and steal the infinity stones before Thanos can get them and snap to bring all their peeps back. Now, of course, they don’t consider the possibility that Thanos from the past they go to will figure out what they’re doing and confront them and just take the Infinity Stones that THEY’VE GATHERED FOR HIM, LIKE IDIOTS. Nah. They don’t even consider that.

So of course that’s exactly what happens.

There are…there are a lot of frustrating things about this that I can talk about, so let’s make a list:

1. It is so, so frustrating to me that they never even consider the possibility that a past version of Thanos will confront them. Like…I mean I get that they have a lot on their minds but really???

2. The movie really yada-yadas over the whole “Pym Particles” thing. Basically, they need these particles to travel around in time as well as whatever code Stark cracked. Of course, they only have just enough of these particles for one round trip through time for each of the heroes. Like…I get that they can’t get more because Dr. Pym was snapped, but…they can’t just go back in time and get more from a different version of Pym? I mean they do that later in the film only after everything has gone wrong, but they couldn’t like…do that? The movie only says that the Infinity Stones are what need to be returned to their respective timelines, not any other objects, so like…just go get a lot of Pym Particles in case something goes wrong…? Whatever.

3. Nebula (Karen Gillan) was one of my favorite characters in Infinity War and Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2, and she was a complete idiot in this movie. I mean…not only did she know that a past version of Thanos was also looking for the stones in one of the timelines they had to travel to, but she also knew the sacrifice required to get the soul stone and SHE DIDN’T THINK TO TELL ANY OF THEM??? I mean jeez Nebula, that is all information that WOULD HAVE BEEN HELPFUL YESTERDAY. If she had just happened to mention “okay by the way, my dad will also be looking for the stones when we go back to 2014, so just we should keep that in mind. Oh also, past me will also be looking, and since I’m a robot and he can read my memories, I should probably stay behind because past me and current me may be connected and Thanos may be able to figure stuff out from current me’s memories. Oh also also, the soul stone requires you to sacrifice something you love, so maybe we should come up with a game plan for that before we go galavanting off in time. Just maybe.”

4. Cap…*sigh*. This is where the movie unhelpfully breaks its own time travel rules. Cap is sent back (alone for some reason?) to return all the stones to their correct timelines so that …something doesn’t happen. I dunno. So the idea is that he disappears from the platform, and though it’ll be longer for him, he’s supposed to reappear on the platform in the current timeline in 5 seconds. Which…he doesn’t. Instead, Bucky (Sebastian Stan) notices someone sitting on a bench down by the water. Sam (Anthony Mackie) goes to investigate only to discover it’s Cap!! But…old! Apparently Cap went back and then just decided to find Peggy (Hayley Atwell) again and live out his days with her, and then he shows up here and hands off his shield to Sam. It’s a sweet scene but…hang on. If Cap went back to be with Peggy, therefore changing the past, he should be in a completely different timeline now, right? He wouldn’t be able to show up on that bench in the current timeline because he’s not a part of it anymore…right? Please? Somebody? It makes no sense!

I just…my head hurts.

But since the movie doesn’t really bother to explain time travel and then breaks its own time travel rules, I guess we don’t need to worry about it, either. Whatever. Nothing matters.

THE SOUL STONE

Just thinking about this genuinely exhausts me.

Okay…so we got introduced to the soul stone in Infinity War. The idea is that the soul stone demands a soul, a soul for a soul, so on and so forth, sacrifice, huzzah. To prove you’re “worthy” or whatever, you have to sacrifice something you love in order to obtain the stone (sidenote: the wording is always something you love, not someone…so like, could you sacrifice an object and no one would have to die? Your favorite food? Your laptop? I know it’s all “a soul for a soul” but in that case the wording should really be more clear and they should say someone you love. Anyway. I’m getting nit picky now. Moving on).

In Infinity War, the stone is used as a plot point to both kill Gamora (Zoe Saldana) and try to give some humanity to Thanos, I guess, but it fails spectacularly. We’ve already watched Thanos kill all of Gamora’s own people, kidnap her, and abuse her and her sister, and now we have to feel sorry for him because he ultimately murdered her?

No. Sorry.

Anyway, so the frustrating thing here is that Natasha and Clint don’t know this. Because again, NEBULA DIDN’T BOTHER TO TELL THEM.

So they head to retrieve the stone with absolutely no idea what it will cost. But the really sucky part is that we as the audience know. So we know before they even meet Red Skull (Ross Marquand) that one of them isn’t getting out of there alive and that just…really sucks. The build-up in Infinity War worked much better because we didn’t know what was coming–unless you read the comics I guess but anyway.

Once they do figure it out, both Natasha and Clint are so full of Hero Complex (TM) that they fight each other in order to sacrifice themselves. Ultimately, they’re both hanging off the edge, and Natasha kicks herself off, forcing Clint to let go of her…and she dies. Clint gets the stone. Yay, I guess.

There are a couple really stupid things about this.

1. Why is it that both characters we’ve seen be sacrificed to the soul stone are women? Why? Is it because women are the more disposable characters? Because they’re not as developed as the men? Because they don’t bring in the big bucks? IS IT BECAUSE OF SEXISM?? Both characters who died here were strong, powerful, no-nonsense women who still had a lot to offer, and instead, they die. Gamora’s death is genuinely sad because she’s straight-up murdered, but Natasha…

2. I am damn sick of heroic sacrifices. It’s just glorified suicide, fam. The whole entire reason Natasha was suddenly feeling useless on the team is that so her death here could be “justified.” See? She’s not useless after all! She can kill herself so that the team can get the magical stone! And it’s okay because she doesn’t have a family like Clint does, so ultimately, it’s just heroic all the way around! Do you know what that tells little girls who admire the Black Widow character? That ultimately, the only thing you can do to be useful is sacrifice yourself? Especially if you’re not living the Ultimate American Dream by having a perfect family and kids?? Have we forgotten everything she did in the past movies??? Yeah. We have.

3. As I mentioned earlier, it’s established that Clint has a family and Natasha doesn’t. When asked if there’s any family she has that they can contact, Banner says that they were her family. They don’t get to be with her anymore, but Clint gets to be with his wife and kids again, so everything’s fine. So…what, found family doesn’t matter as much as blood? That’s nice. This is also coming after the reveal that Natasha was operated on so she can never have kids, and she calls herself a monster because of this. Ummmmm…I have several questions…

4. So…again, in Infinity War, Thanos straight up pushes Gamora off the cliff, thereby actually sacrificing her…so it makes sense when he gets the stone. But Clint doesn’t do that…? Clint doesn’t want to let go of Natasha–she’s the one who kicks off the cliff and forces him to let go of her! She literally kills herself!! Clint didn’t sacrifice shit!!! How does he get the stone after this?? It makes ZERO. SENSE.

I just…this was stupid. It just was. Also–it’s implied that even with ~time travel magic~, they can never get Natasha back because the stone says so I guess? Of course. What even are the rules?? ARE THERE ANY???

No.

THE CHARACTERS’ TREATMENT

So here’s the thing: some of the characterization work was wonderful.

I think it’s why the time hopping segment was my favorite–it was finally, finally like I was watching an Avengers movie. Look at Steve and Tony bantering like always! Look at Banner trying to awkwardly science his way out of non-science situations! Look at Clint and Natasha being friends again! Look at Lang being just an incredibly awkward dork! Look at the teamwork! Ahhhhhh!!

But it’s like everything fell apart in the third act. Like I’m glad that Clint spent the rest of the film absolutely haunted over Natasha’s death even though he was reunited with his family, but you’re honestly going to tell me he didn’t make damn well sure they had a funeral for her like they had for Tony? I guess you could say it’s because he still hadn’t come to terms with her death but like…he did though? He understands she can’t come back (even though I don’t) and he talks about how he wished she knew they had won. He gets it. He also knows Natasha better than anyone else, he knows how much the Avengers meant to her. Why wouldn’t he make sure they have a funeral for her, too?

Don’t even get me started on Captain Marvel. They built up her being in the film and the she’s barely onscreen?? I know it’s because “oh it’s supposed to be the send-off film for the original heroes, she’s not one of them so” like that’s fine but then ADVERTISE IT THAT WAY. This film was not advertised as a “send-off for the original heroes” it was advertised as the “ultimate superhero event” which implies that ALL THE HEROES PARTICIPATE. “But she does participate! She destroys Thanos’s ship and fights him one-on-one!” Yeah, she does! And that all makes sense for her character! What doesn’t make sense is Thanos randomly knocking her out? She’s supposed to be the “most powerful character in the MCU” and she just…got knocked out by one stone? The only reason, THE ONLY REASON, she does not play a bigger role in dispatching Thanos is because the narrative says it has to be one of the original heroes since it’s their send-off. Does it make sense at all when looking at the characters, the narrative up to this point, and the rules set down by the movie itself? No.

And Cap?? CAPTAIN STEVE ROGERS AMERICA, CAPTAIN “TILL THE END OF THE LINE,” CAPTAIN “HAVE TO FOCUS ON SAVING THE FUTURE,” CAPTAIN PULLED A LITERAL HELICOPTER OUT OF THE AIR IN ORDER TO SAVE HIS BEST FRIEND IN THE WHOLE WORLD…then just straight-up abandons that friend. Look–I think Steve’s arc with Peggy is wonderfully tragic. I love the idea of time travel opening up a chance for him to be with her, I do. But having him stay there and live out his life? It completely invalidates all his character development involving her up to this point. Her funeral? Pointless. All his personal work on remembering her forever but healthily moving on? Forgotten. He claims he’d do anything for Bucky, his best friend, and he just leaves him behind to go live an entire life without him. He does that to not one good friend, but two! Neither Sam or Bucky deserves that, and that is so, so out of character for Cap. I can believe he’d go back to dance with Peggy-maybe–but he would not stay with her. He would not abandon his friends, his family like that. He did so much to find them again and then he just…abandons them. And Bucky and Steve don’t even talk when Cap is all old or whatever?? Ridiculous.

An interesting point made by YMS on YouTube is that Thanos is especially frustrating in this film because he has no relationship with our heroes. The obnoxious guy from Infinity War who, while still not sympathetic despite filmmakers’ efforts, had a personal seething hatred for each of the Avengers for a specific reason? He was killed within the first…what, 20-30 minutes of the movie? Probably less. It all blurs together when the movie is three hours long. The Thanos they fight at the end of the movie is from the past, and while they know him, he doesn’t know them at all. He knows of them, he knows what they’ve done because of Nebula’s memories, but he doesn’t know them. The battle is kind of half-hearted because he isn’t a personal villain anymore–he’s just annoyed at everyone trying to stop him and that makes him extra annoying. I mean damn, I know he’s not supposed to be likable, but at least make him a good villain for the heroes.

And Tony…Tony getting to make some sort of peace with his dad during the time travel segment was wonderful. Every time we see him be a little more emotional rather than snarky, it’s nice. Like he’s super snarky and sarcastic, but he’s also incredibly soft and loving (fun fact: apparently there’s a clip of Tony kissing Peter on the head when they finally reunite and the Russo brothers cut it because heaven forbid our male heroes have feelings I guess MASCULINITY YEAH and Robert Downey Jr. is mad they cut it. GOOD). It’s one reason why his ultimate sacrifice or whatever is so stupid.

Do you know how many times Tony Stark should have died by now? His whole arc was about finding something to live for. His first sacrifice attempt in the first Avengers makes sense with his arc because he wasn’t quite there yet…this team, these friends, Pepper, adopted son Peter Parker, biological daughter Morgan Stark, he learns that they are all what make life worth living. “Oh but he didn’t have a choice, Dr. Strange told him that there was only one outcome where they win, and it was the one where he dies!”

Nuh-uh.

THE ENDING

The ending of this movie genuinely exhausts me and I hate having to revisit it. As problematic as he sometimes was, as over-the-top ridiculous and selfish, Tony Stark was a great, great character. He was probably my favorite. So yes, some of my anger over the ending purely comes from watching my favorite character die. I mean, it’s never fun, but at least sometimes it’s “justified” at least.

This was not. At all.

Like I mentioned before, Tony Stark has had several very close brushes with death. Most of the Avengers have, really, but Tony’s relationship with it has always been stronger than the others. He should have died in that raid in the beginning of Iron Man. But he didn’t. He should have died when Obadiah ripped out his arc reactor and left him. But he didn’t. He should have died on accident testing out his different suits, honestly. He should have died in Avengers when he flew that missile through the portal. He should have…he should have…he should have…

But he didn’t. Unlike the other Avengers (except for perhaps Black Widow (also maybe Bruce Banner?) but we’ll never know now will we), his story starts with death and it looms over him his entire arc. What is his worst fear when Wanda invades his mind in Age of Ultron? That his team dies. His family. And he’s left alone. Why does he engage in this feud with Cap and Bucky? Because Bucky (albeit brainwashed) was responsible for Tony’s parents’ death, leaving him alone. And Cap knew. What haunts him most after Infinity War? That he watched Peter Parker die in front of him while he could do absolutely nothing about it. He couldn’t stop Peter from dying alone. He couldn’t stop Peter from leaving him alone when he died.

There’s a consistent pattern in Tony’s character arc that was completely thrown out the window with the ending of Endgame. Tony is found at the beginning of the movie, brought back from the brink of death yet again, and he has a chance to start a family. It’s pretty insulting that Clint’s family is built up as this big character point for him, the reason he does everything, the reason Natasha sacrifices herself, and he gets to reunite with them like everything’s fine…while Pepper has to explain to their young daughter that Tony is never coming back. Clint’s family reunion feels hollow in comparison, like it’s wrong to enjoy it. And I’m sure Clint felt the same way–he’s so guilty over Natasha’s death that you can’t honestly tell me he wouldn’t understand how lucky he is to be with his family but how awful it is that Tony can’t be with his–but they don’t bother showing that in the movie.

There’s nothing subversive or shocking about killing a character who canonically suffers from PTSD involving death and suicide.

I’ve mentioned The Magicians before, but I’ll bring it back now in more detail because it unfortunately fits this same situation and trope. Spoilers if you haven’t seen the season 4 finale of Syfy’s The Magicians.

The main character in The Magicians is Quentin. Quentin is, canonically, suicidal and depressed. We meet him in a mental institution where he checked himself in. His depression and his suicidal tendencies are brought up throughout the run of the show. The show runners were praised for featuring a main character who suffers from such things. In the final “battle” of season 4, Quentin uses magic in the “mirror world” knowing full-well that it may cost him his life, but it will save his friends. He dies. He is shown how his friends are remembering him, he is told how much he changed their lives, he is told how loved he was. And then that’s it.

No matter how the show runners tried to phrase it in interviews, there’s no getting around the fact that Quentin ultimately committed suicide. In the afterlife, he flat-out says “did I save my friends…or did I finally find a way to kill myself?”

The idea of the heroic sacrifice trope is nice, I’ll admit, since it seems like such a logical peak for a heroic arc; but it’s so overused by this point that we all expect it. How many movies do we assume the character is dead after they make some sort of sacrifice? Usually they’re not actually dead, but lately, creators seem to think that that’s not “shocking” enough, and what audiences really want is to watch their favorite heroes actually die. At least it’s heroic!! And it’s subversive!! No one ever does that!! I know they have friends and family and a great character arc that involves not wanting to die but that was all for shock value!!!!

There is nothing subversive or shocking about killing a character who canonically suffers from PTSD involving death and suicide.

“But it’s realism! People die in real life all the time! Not everyone can survive, I mean come on!”

Okay first of all: you really wanna talk to me about realism in your stories about magic, scientists who become big green monsters when they get angry, people who get superpowers from spider-bites, and gods of thunder and mischief? Really?

Secondly–there’s a great G.K. Chesterton quote that Neil Gaiman paraphrases in Coraline that reads: “fairy tales are more than true–not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten.”

I don’t need my very unrealistic media to tell me that sometimes people die. I’m well aware of that fact, believe me. What I want to see is people like me who, against all odds, are able to overcome things like that. In a universe with time travel, super-beings, and TALKING TREES, it’s almost insulting to be told that the ONLY time where the Avengers won and Thanos was beaten is the time where Tony sacrifices himself.

And the only reason they did it that way is because Tony Stark had to have a send-off. But he couldn’t have a happy send-off like Captain America, filled with dances and love and peace, oh no. Tony, who has feared death his whole life, had to die. He leaves behind a wife, a young daughter, and a band of fiercely upset friends. His family. There is no reason why Captain Marvel, the “most powerful hero in the MCU,” couldn’t have wielded the stones instead of Tony. Tony Stark is still a human. Captain Marvel is not–she can fly through space without a helmet and fly through an entire alien ship to destroy it. She could easily have wielded the stones and survived (yeah it almost killed Thanos and Hulk to do it BUT IT DIDN’T BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT HUMAN). The only reason she didn’t is because they needed some subversive perma-death and what better way to wrap up this Marvel arc than by killing off the man who started it all?

I genuinely don’t want to see Spider-Man: Far From Home at this point because that means I have to watch precious, deserves-so-much-better-than-this Peter Parker deal with yet another father figure’s death. It was hard enough watching Tony deal with Peter’s death. But they got one hug–and now Peter lost someone else. No wonder he doesn’t want to bring the spider-man suit on the school trip, I wouldn’t wanna be Spider-Man after that either.

…also, can we talk about Tony’s funeral? How absolutely no one is crying? How all the characters just stand there in black looking solemn? TONY’S OWN DAUGHTER ISN’T EVEN CRYING.

There is no reason why Tony Stark couldn’t have quietly retired from being Iron Man to live out his days peacefully with his family. He’d already done it for 5 years. If anyone deserves a soft epilogue, it is Tony Stark.

WRAPPING UP

Look, this movie has three full hours of material for me to be upset about, and clearly, I am.

There are still things I loved. Time travel plot? Fun! Wacky! Needlessly ridiculous!

Thor crowning Valkyrie as the new leader of Asgard? Perfect! She deserves it! Excellent!

All the women heroes (except Black Widow and Gamora since they’re only good for sacrifices) teaming up to get Captain Marvel across the battlefield? Unbelievably wonderful! Give me a movie of just that! Incredible!

Special effects? It’s a very pretty movie! It all looked very super!

But none of that makes up for the mess that is the final product. There are so many plot holes (Natasha killed herself so Clint never made a sacrifice and still got the stone? Cap took Mjolnir back in time with him and then…what? How was Nebula able to just stick her tech fingers in the time travel machine and bring Thanos? Why didn’t Nebula warn anyone about past Thanos or the Soul Stone sacrifice? Why did Cap abandon Bucky and Sam? Why was no one crying at Tony’s funeral? Why did no one use actual teamwork on Thanos like they did in Infinity War because that was the closest they ever got to being able to take the gauntlet off? I could keep going but I digress).

I think that superhero movies can be phenomenal. Look at Black Panther. Look at Avengers. Look at Iron Man. But I genuinely think it’s difficult to write a big superhero mashup movie because…there are too many superheroes. Seriously. It’s hard to write a villain that can genuinely overpower all of those super beings. It’s probably why Captain Marvel was MIA the whole movie. It’s why no actual teamwork was used. It’s why Tony Stark “had to die.” Superheroes, in their own universes, have powers that are explained and make sense (generally). It’s exciting to think of combining those heroes and having them team up to face off against a villain, but there are so many rules and powers that it’s hard to keep track of them all.

Generally, I feel like Endgame had a whole lot of excitement building up to it, and it just fell flat. It’s crushing box office records and that makes sense, it’s not so much a movie as it is an event. It’s not so much a movie as it is a chance to show off the special effects (and they were great!). It’s not so much a movie as it is a money-maker.

But there has to be more to a movie than just the visuals and the audio. You can decorate a cardboard box to look like the most appetizing cake in the world, but at the end of the day, you’re just going to be eating pretty cardboard.

The point of Endgame was not to tell a story. It was not to tie up loose ends. It was not to give satisfying conclusions to the character arcs of the original heroes who are leaving. The point was to make money. The point was to sell tickets. The point was to be a product.

And it worked.

FAVORITE MOMENT

Like I said, I have a couple favorites, but I am such a sucker for the trope of “WE HAVE A CLEAR PLAN IT IS FOOL-PROOF” and then it’s followed by “THIS IS ALL WRONG WE ARE THE FOOLS!!!”

It was the one part of the movie that was just fun and hopeful, even when everything went sideways and hilarity ensued.

“OOF” MOMENT

Too many to name, so instead have a happy Tony Stark. That’s what I’d rather have tbh.

SHOULD YOU TAKE YOURSELF TO SEE THIS MOVIE?

No.

I mean I know a lot of people like it, but I also know that some have had the same complaints and reactions that I did. And here’s the thing–studios don’t care about that. They don’t care about your opinion, especially if you didn’t like it. You still gave them money, and that’s all that matters to them.

If this doesn’t sound like a movie you’d enjoy, obviously don’t see it. There’s nothing about it that’s noteworthy if you’re not a superhero person (unlike, say, Black Panther).

If you’re a casual Marvel fan and this sounds like a disappointment, do not see it.

Here’s the really shitty thing about the whole “don’t spoil the endgame” campaign: they made sure you went to go see the movie just so you could know what happened. They made you feel small for not seeing it before the “spoiler lift” for the media. They made you feel like a bad fan for not supporting all these actors you love and have supported in the past.

You had to give them the money they wanted just so you could enjoy a story that ultimately fell flat. They didn’t make this movie for you–they made it for the awards, the accolades.

I genuinely regret seeing this movie in theaters. This film, which does not function well as a standalone movie at all, toppled Titanic in box office numbers.

(“But Titanic is dumb because they both could have fit on that board!!” Yeah well this movie is dumb because Tony Stark and Black Widow didn’t have to die. At least Titanic gave the characters some depth and heart.)

I will not be seeing this movie again. I love re-watching Marvel movies because it’s fun and up till now, they’ve been good. They’ve felt like character studies more than anything else, and that’s what drew me in. This movie? This treats its characters–and its audience–as products.

If you liked it, that’s wonderful. If you’re happy with how things played out, that’s great. If you don’t regret spending money on this, I’m jealous, that’s awesome.

As for me, I can’t wait for creators to go back to giving us stories with heart and characters that are treated with respect. You can have great special effects in a film, but your movie cannot stand on special effects alone.

Anyway, all in all, I give Avengers: Endgame…

2/5 CHARACTERS WHO DESERVED BETTER!!

Don’t get me wrong though–all the characters deserved better. These are just the ones I’m most angry about. And Shuri. Did she even have any lines in this movie? Unbelievable. Also Peter Parker. Don’t even bring him up. I’ll just think about how his voice broke when he saw Tony dying and how he had to lose a father-figure all over again and FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY STOP DOING THIS TO HIM HE IS A CHILD.

At this rate, the only way I’ll be excited for another Marvel movie is if they truly do a next gen thing with Peter Parker, Morgan Stark, Cassie Lang, and Clint’s daughter whose name I forgot. Sam can be their really tired leader who is Too Old For This.

TRAILERS TO WATCH OUT FOR

Mostly repeats, but the two new ones are:

Gemini Man, which looks…interesting? Generally I’m always ready to hop on the Will Smith sci-fi train, I just really wanna know if this movie has an actual plot or not.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker which I’ll be seeing because I have generally enjoyed the new trilogy. Also I want to cry about Carrie Fisher.

And that about does it for this review!

I’m ready to stop thinking about this movie, personally. Every time I think about it I just

It exhausts me.

I wanted to like it, but I just left the theater feeling so hollow…much to the chagrin of the AMC worker asking people what they thought. I don’t think he wanted an actual answer and was just being nice, but I’m socially awkward so how was I supposed to know.

Anyway, if this really does sound like something you would actually like, then sure, go see Endgame. But if you’re able to survive without seeing it, and trust me…you are able to survive without seeing it, I say skip it. Really. Please don’t give them anymore money.

(Sidenote: did you hear about how the Russo brothers claim that one of the MCU characters is secretly gay??? *GASP*

Plot twist: it’s Natasha. Because she’s dead. Can’t have happy representation. #buryyourgaysIguess.)