![]() ![]() As with any good epic (in the Tolkien, not the Hollywood, sense of the word), Endgame is a film about the high cost of victory. If the thematic arc of Infinity War could be boiled down to coming to terms with defeat, Endgame at its core is a film about consequences. Instead of undermining Infinity War-narratively and emotionally- Endgame ends up enriching it, making it more interesting and impactful. I think the most dedicated Marvel fans amongst us all sort of went into Endgame knowing this would be the price we had to pay in order to see the resolution of this storyline.Įxcept that ends up not being the case at all. Think about that weird conundrum for long and it quickly becomes apparent that Endgame ran the serious risk of not only narratively undermining Infinity War by undoing its deaths but also of emotionally undermining it so severely that the first part of this two-part story lost all impact for future viewings. Mind you, we live in a world where films are announced years in advance, and it didn’t take a savvy viewer to put two and two together and realize some of those dead heroes were only a film or two into a multi-film contract, which meant they would be coming back, somehow or another, by the end of this film. Half the population of the universe-and half of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes-had been “blipped” out of existence at the snap of a finger. At the end of Infinity War, we were left in a weird place for a big, blockbuster superhero franchise. To get into why, though, we need to dip our toes into spoiler territory, for both Endgame and 2018’s Infinity War, but I’ll try to keep things as vague as possible on both fronts, for the pair of you who’ve seen neither film. That it ends up being so much more than a mere obligatory box checker is a testament to the talents of the film’s directors (Joe and Anthony Russo) and writers (Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely). It's an imperfect movie, but perfectly satisfying conclusion to this arc of the Marvel saga.The fact that Endgame manages to check all of those boxes without crumbling under its own weight is a bit of a minor cinematic miracle. That it works this well is even more of a miracle. Seriously this is like watching someone juggle 10 flaming chainsaws, it's a godamn miracle it works at all. The movie has a big emotional core, and a climactic end that is godamn powerful. Okay so those are my criticisms, what did I like about the movie? I guess everything else? The time travel plot let's us revisit and honor some old moments in Marvel with a new lens in sort of a Back to the Future Part 2 way that's a lot of fun, and it brings back some characters I didn't think we'd ever see again. Also I hate Professor Hulk, he's just not that fun. ![]() This final battle, while boasting the biggest ensemble of Marvel heroes we've ever seen on screen, is weirdly dark and muddied in CGI scenery compared to the battle at Wakanda from Infinity War. Not only that, Infinity War I think had a better final battle. At the end of the day, Infinity War was just a wildly new experience, it was such a gamechanger and crowd-pleaser. Overall, I really do like Infinity War better. As a conclusion to over a decades worth of storytelling, it's got a lot to live up to, and it's about as good as you could really hope for it to be.
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