DIR: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo • WRI: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely • DOP: Trent Opaloch • ED: Jeffrey Ford, Matthew Schmidt • PRO: Kevin Feige • DES: John Plas, Charles Wood • MUS: Alan Silvestri • CAST: Brie Larson, Robert Downey Jr., Karen Gillan
Hard to believe that in eleven years Marvel have produced twenty two films all set in the one shared world whilst hovering around in the background has been an eleven-year threat of a menacing villain called Thanos, who has taken longer to arrive on the scene than the dragons in Game of Thrones. My but aren’t superhero movies fans a patient lot.
Avengers: Endgame is the culmination of all that waiting and world building and Infinity stone learning (if you were actually paying attention what started with Iron Man and has built steadily ever since to create the phenomenon we know today). Taking its cue from the Marvel comics shared universe Marvel studios has built a similar world, where every film counts for its connection to the others in its shared universe.
Avengers: Endgame is a film so critic-proof that if every one of them gave this film a bad review it will still be the phenomenal success it is surely going to be. A milestone was already created with Infinity Wars record box office, the first half of this Avengers tale; and with a bummer of an ending too. Half of the universe wiped out with the click of Thanos’ fingers and his Infinity stone laden gauntlet, more importantly half the heroes in the Marvel universe, they killed Spider-man for Christ’ sakes.
That film, a tragic space opera if you will, was always going to be a hard act to follow. Of course no one will be walking into this film thinking they are all dead forever. The question is how would they save everyone? And there lies the rub for some, (critics mostly).
The main plot thrust offered is a good old fashioned time-travel yarn complete with references to every other time-travel film they could think of just to point out how ridiculous time travel is and set up their own rules. Trust me, when you see it you will be amused. What makes all of this work are the emotional stakes of the story and the rumour mill letting us know enough to suspect the loss of some heroes along the way; as Marvel movies go this is at least ten hankies worth of tears for the average fan.
Endgame is an unadulterated crowd pleaser, not so much a film as an event. The Russo brothers now on their fourth Marvel movie handle everything with storytelling skill of their comic book forebears as opposed to the likes of Chekov and understand quite well the old axiom of giving the public what the public want. All the necessary heroes get the right amount of screen time and for every laugh there are other things happening to balance it all out.
This one is critic-proof, it was made with love for the fans, the true believers and no amount of critical thinking can really understand what it all means to the ones that really care; no matter how they might deconstruct or criticize the proceedings, that have brought eleven years of storytelling to some shocking conclusions and created new horizons for the fans to continue their worship of all things Marvel.
Paul Farren
180 minutes
12A (see IFCO for details)
Avengers: Endgame is released 26th April 2019
2 Comments
“I fought my way out of that cave, became Iron Man, realized I loved you.” I was really hoping to pull off one last one. ”
These heroic words in the harbingers of one of the biggest events of this year in the world of cinema are uttered by none other than Tony Stark – a superhero who changed the face of comic book adaptations. And it was from him that everything began. When in 2008 the first movie from the cinematic universe MCU, or “Iron Man” came to the cinemas, there was no hope in it. As it turned out later, however, Tony Stark not only gained the name of the first cinema superhero MCU, but in time he also became the main founder of a group of heroes, which was aimed at fighting all envy in the name of peace and security. And they were the legendary Avengers.
And now we reach their end. When the famous members of the old Avenger’s Guard in 2012, namely Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, the Black Widow, Hulk and Hawkeye, go together for the last time on a mission to repair their past mistakes. After last year’s “War without Borders” you could honestly be afraid of how the Russo brothers decide to close the story of the Avengers team – even though all their previous productions were very successful.
At the anniversary of the decade of MCU’s existence, they finally made something in the “War without Borders” that nobody was ready: in just a few minutes from a finger flick (in the literal sense), Thanos killed more than half of all people throughout the Universe. After such an extremely surprising end, a really heavy walnut got the boss to crack to jump over such a high bar. And in addition, “End of the game” from the beginning was announced as the final of the saga Avengers – a legend built for over 10 years. In the meantime, there were rumors about going to the quantum world, but everything seemed to be “swept” by Thanos. The Russo brothers, like the Avengers, have taken up the desire to face the past, and certainly at this point it is safe to say that the culmination of the Avengers’ adventures did not disappoint the hopes placed in it.
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