OVP: Avengers: Endgame (2019)

Film: Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Stars: Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Paul Rudd, Brie Larson, Karen Gillan, Bradley Cooper, Josh Brolin
Director: Anthony & Joe Russo
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Visual Effects)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I wrote when Captain Marvel came out that it had become impossible for me to judge the films in the franchise without seeing how they ended, and so I (like every person on the planet, apparently) went out the first week Avengers 4 was in theaters and caught the final(?) chapter of the movie franchise.  The film is destined for a slice of immortality, certain to overtake Avatar as the highest-grossing film (a title it may hold forever considering global box office trends-like Avatar and Titanic before it, it’s hard to imagine what kind of movie would eventually trounce such a film).  But the better question is-is it any good?  After 11 years and 22 films, what was the series finale like?

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie picks up almost exactly after we left off, with an opening eerily similar to The Leftovers (a series that is heavily borrowed from in terms of aesthetic, though not in gravitas by this picture).  Hawkeye (Renner) watches as his entire family goes up in smoke (similar to Carrie Coon's Nora on The Leftovers), and soon we find out what life is like in a world where half the planet has disappeared. Each Avenger that got left behind takes their lives in different directions.  Iron Man (Downey) settles down with Pepper Potts and has a child, Black Widow (Johansson) takes on the Nick Fury role, Hawkeye becomes an assassin, the Hulk (Ruffalo) becomes a kinder, gentler being, Captain America (Evans) runs grief sessions, and Thor (Hemsworth) just is a drunk who lets his Adonis-like figure go in favor of a Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski sort of aesthetic (though he’s still hot, and anyone who says otherwise needs corrective lenses).  The return of Ant-Man (Rudd) gives them hope that they can go back-in-time and stop Thanos, but Nebula (Gillan), Thanos’s daughter accidentally informs her father in the past that they are trying to undo his work, and as a result they have a gigantic battle where literally every character you can think of from the MCU pops up to fight Thanos.  This journey ultimately ends in the death of not only Thanos, but also Black Widow & Iron Man, and Captain America becoming too old to be an Avenger.

Here’s the deal-there’s a lot to really like about Avengers: Endgame.  The casting budget on the film had to be just impossibly large (when you’re willing to spend money to, say, just have Michelle Pfeiffer & Marisa Tomei stand at a funeral, you know you’ve entered new territory), but it’s a joy to see something so spectacular. The fight scene with Thanos is wonderful, with major moments from Captain America (people cheered in my theater when he took Thor’s hammer) and for girl power (it was hokey as hell, but I loved the “Women of Marvel Assemble” sequence, and so did the packed theater I was in).  In my opinion we have Evans, Hemsworth, & Gillan as the movie’s MVP’s (the movement to get Robert Downey Jr. an acting Oscarcitation feels a stretch, and more a nod to a truly remarkable comeback than a true acting achievement).  Gillan is giving a strong performance, and Evans/Hemsworth have carved out such wonderful dimensions with these noble guys (and have such great chemistry with everyone) that it’s terrific to get to see them together for the last time.  And there’s something to be said for the movie feeling permanently over.  The next franchises are clearly set up (Spider-Man in a few weeks, but also there’s obvious potential for a future Captain America (with Anthony Mackie as the star), Black Panther, Captain Marvel, & Guardians pictures), but it also feels like an end to at least the chapter that started in 2008, a true achievement in a world where we have to stretch movies until their story breaks.

But there’s also a lot of slog here.  Trying to fit 40-odd characters into a movie is a tough task, and certain people (Black Widow & Hulk especially) get the short end of the stick in this picture.  The movie is overlong, predictable, and doesn’t have the emotional heft of the last film’s surprise snap.  Everything in this movie feels exactly how you would have expected it to turn out.  That might be the sign of a good finale (everything was as it was supposed to be), but a movie should have at least some unexpected twists, and it might have been more interesting if we’d had characters die whom we thought might actually exist in the MCU in the future.  As a result, I’m giving this movie a 3 star rating, and think it rates under Infinity War, which felt more epic and more urgent. As a franchise, it’s hard not to commend the achievements of Kevin Feige over the past 11 years, and I’d probably go with a 4-star for the 22 parts as a whole, even if only a couple actual movies in the series rose to that same level.