Now playing: Avengers: Endgame

Avengers: Endgame was without a doubt the most intense cinematic experience of my life. 

Which I will obviously not ruin for anyone by putting spoilers in here without marking them. Like there is a giant warning down there and then a picture after that so you won’t accidently skim over anything.

This movie is longer than anything I’ve ever seen and so is this post, so let me give you a spoiler-free bullet point recap: 

• Seeing the original six Avengers back together is amazing
• Captain America’s butt finally gets the recognition it deserves
• The film is full of throwbacks to the other MCU tentpoles in every shape and form
• It is a complex yet compelling action movie even casual viewers will love
• They said, part of the journey is the end but this is a whole lot of story in itself
• For fans, it is extremely emotional and a lot more satisfying/soul-destroying than Infinity War 
• I did not like Captain Marvel in this one

Let’s get into it. By now, you know that I am Marvel trash. I have been getting goosebumps every time I talked about Endgame for the last two weeks. I tossed and turned the whole night before the big day. And I have friends who are exactly like that too. So, naturally, we started the evening of the midnight premiere by re-watching Avengers: Infinity War, filling our systems with caffeine and riling up our emotions. By the time we left the house for the cinema, we were so tightly wound, we were bouncing up and down. And then we saw the pilgrimage. There really isn’t another word for it. The subway and the paths to the cinemas were full of fans – all hyperexcited, most dressed up to some degree.  The cinema was filled with people and the excitement in the air literally made my knees weak. 

We got popcorn, took our seats, readied our tissues and leaned back – actually, we didn’t lean back, we were way too wound up for that. And then it started. 

Endgame started with a lot of familiar scenes because all scenes from the trailer happen in very quickly. So having seen the trailer, you know nothing about the movie, you just now the prologue. Now after that, I don’t really want to talk about anything that happens except that the original and un-dusted Avengers find a way to go up against Thanos again. There are a lot of jumps in the storyline to accommodate all the different plot lines but it never gets confusing and it is great to see different splinter groups work together in either well-loved or completely surprising combinations. Most of the movie heavily relies on previous Marvel movies in a way that Infinity War didn’t so it’s a feast for fans. The movie is packed to the brim with the history of the MCU – from references to inside jokes to full on flashbacks. 

It’s all there and at the midnight showing, people knew. There were exclusively hardcore fans there on that Tuesday night. So every plot twist and snarky one-liner and emotional throwback got exactly what it deserved. There was clapping. There was booing. There was booming laughter. And of course, there were tears. To the casual observer, should he wander into the biggest movie of the decade oblivious, the movie is a very complex but rewarding (I hope, I am really not one for objectivity here) action extravaganza. But for fans, it is so much more. It is the culmination of ten years with these characters and the end to the biggest story ever told on screen. 

It was a great move to have pretty much only the original six Avengers left standing, with the addition of veteran superhero Rhodey, female badass Okoye and the ever-integral Ant-Man and Captain Marvel on the sidelines. The original six all got their characters elevated onto new levels and we got to know all of them a new, dealing with the loss brought on by losing half of the universe. From a personal point of view, I loved how that turned out with Cap, Widow and Iron Man – they didn’t exactly come out stronger but there was definitely interesting, yet believable character development visible. Heartbreaking, yes, but also good to see.  I still don’t fully understand how Hawkeye arrived at his decisions – maybe that’s based too closely on the comics but it doesn’t feel very natural without knowledge of them. I do like the new look though. Banner had some issues with his alter ego Hulk in the last one and the way they were “resolved” in Endgame felt extremely irritating to me. Even though the character development is pretty consistent (yet nothing like) with Hulk in Thor Ragnarok, that movie is where my problems with the believability of the Hulk’s development started in the first place. As for Thor, I will count Thor of Ragnarok as the best version of him and I thought he lost much of his outstanding qualities from that movie in Infinity War already but his character did not deserve to be made into his Endgame version. I thought the portrayal of his character was done in an extremely problematic 90s-comedy kind of way and also addressed as such throughout the movie. I did not care for it, thought it was outdated and insensitive. It was my least favorite part about the movie for sure. From the start, I was also not sure how Captain Marvel would fit into the team and just like most people expected, she just seemed to be the easy way out sometimes. I liked that there was not much interference in the group dynamics from her part but when she was onscreen, I did not warm up to her character. I loved her snark, self-confidence and dry humor in her origin story but it was just dialed up a notch too high this time. 

I feel like this is all I can safely say without putting in any spoilers, and I don’t want to recap the whole movie for you even in the spoiler-section but I do have some things that I want – no, need – to talk about that will constitute as spoilers even though it’s not all super detailed information. Before we get into spoilers I just want to recommend watching that movie, if you have any inclination for action movies, superheroes or pop culture in general. This thing is for the ages. I was an emotional wreck before the lights went out, went through an emotional rollercoaster during the movie, spent the last half an hour of it in tears – once the dam broke, there was no going back – sad tears, happy tears, tired tears, non-stop tears. I still can’t stop thinking about it and cannot wait to see it again – even though it will still be traumatizing the second time around. If you have been living under a rock and haven’t seen the trailer, watch it here. 

And now…

ATTENTION

+++ SPOILER ALERT +++ SPOILER ALERT +++ SPOILER ALERT +++

SERIOUSLY, SPOILERS INCOMING!

Okay, so I hope I can talk freely now, but just for the record. THERE WILL BE SPOILERS AND I DO NOT WANT TO SPOIL ENDGAME FOR ANYONW WHO HASN’T SEEN IT. People have gotten punched in the face for spoiling it – look it up, that actually happened. And rightly so. 

So anyways, where do I start? I want to make this short and sweet but I would love to get into detailed discussions with anyone who is willing – hit me up. 

I’ll use bullet points so this won’t be twelve pages long. Here it goes, all my thoughts in no particular order. They are all very emotional, I overuse the word love/hate and there is absolutely no objectivity here.

• Where did the Pegasus come from and what the hell will Valkyries title be now? Will she be in further movies? So many Asgard-related questions! 
• I obviously loved that Tony Stark got to experience a love 3000 and he did not deserve to go. That being said, taking on the infinity stones to defeat the biggest villain ever was exactly the magnitude of heroic death he deserved. 
• I did not expect the widow to die. She was the backbone of the Avengers and I loved seeing her grow into that role even more after the snap. If S.H.I.E.L.D. had still been there, she would’ve ended up running that show too. On that note, I feel like her death was glossed over too much. There should’ve been a part to honor her like they did with Tony.
• The whole Hulk/Banner thing was super cringy and dabbing in 2019 is completely out of the question. 
• Sweet, sweet Thor did not deserve to be made into a cruel joke like this. Depression is real and this not how you portray it in 2019. I did however love the scene with his mom.
• Loki got away. I’m sorry but that is a major disturbance in the space/time continuum or whatever you call it. 
• If Vision ended up never existing what about Ultron and all that? 
• How did affect anything that one Nebula killed the other? 
• I have just so many questions around the time travel/ time lines thing. 
• I love that the weird Gamorra/Starlord love story died and I love that he got punched in the face. I hate the guy. 
• That ladies only battle scene was everything. Goosebumps. Girl power! 
• I do not dig Captain Marvels new haircut and I would’ve loved to see Goose again.
• I love how Tony and Steve got a bit of closure in their mission.
• I also love how we got see all these “behind the scenes” looks at the iconic scenes from the earlier movies. It was super surreal to be transported back but taken out of the frames that you know by heart.

Bulletpoints fail me when it comes to my sweet baby angel, Steve Rogers. First up, I adored how differently the elevator scene went. The focus on his butt – America’s ass – throughout the whole movie was all I could ever ask for. The scene of him fighting himself, being fed up with his own catchphrase, commenting on said butt AND him letting up on himself after mentioning Bucky was a masterpiece. I literally got goosebumps thinking of it again. Pure comedic gold filled with references – that I all got, thank you very much – and the pure sweetness of the Bucky thing. I also pretty much expected him to stay behind in his mission with Tony and I would’ve celebrated his chance to be with Peggy. But no, he is a man of duty and he went back and did us all the biggest favor ever by casually picking up the damn hammer. The cinema went wild, I tell you. I mean, there was never any doubt in my mind. But he picked it up and he used it and it was everything. I was so scared for him during that whole battle sequence I could hardly breathe. And then he survived. And then my sweet baby angel went on to have the most deserved, most epic, most improbably and generally best and truly amazing happy end. I am literally tearing up as I type this, just as I have every time I have thought about it since. I am over the moon happy for my guy to finally get the happy end he truly deserved. And a lifetime of it as well. Two tiny points of criticism are that I think he looked remarkably like Pierce Brosnan when he got old, and that he should’ve at least asked Bucky to join him. My baby Bucky is just as lost as he was. Falcon becoming the new Captain America was inevitable but I did appreciate the nod to Bucky there. I’m sure he’ll do great and a black Captain America is exactly what is needed right now – I truly hope that the Iron Man mantel gets picked up by a girl (maybe Morgan Stark?) – but my Captain America is Steve Rogers and my obsession retires with him.