Much as I suspected, Avengers Endgame suffers, straight off, from what I continue to maintain was a cutting mistake in Part 1: that snap of the fingers should have cut to black, and that film's last 15 minutes or so - the dust in the wind - dealt with in more tightly arranged flashes in Part 2. But it didn't... and here we are.
Endgame struggles, from its start, to find a tone that makes sense - at nearly 3 hours, it feels overlong, and much of the dead weight is in the first hour, where grief and loss are center stage, and an admittedly talented group of actors milk the time for all its worth. I get it, comic book movies aren't always the most thrilling of acting challenges. That doesn't permit performers to trot out skills not seen since Advanced Improv absent the writing to back it up. Trying to make sense of a world without heroes, or half the population, is hard... but meaningful sadness isn't the best look for comic books, or comic book films. And at best, it would require better scripting than what's on display in Endgame.
The film fares better once our remaining heroes find a sense of purpose and a resolve to right the wrong of the Thanos snap. Sure it can (and should) only be described as a wacky plan to harness time travel... but comics are at their best letting us watch imagination roam especially free, and once Endgame sends the heroes on their various small group quests, it finds much of what both films have lacked - a sense of adventure, and purpose. And sure, there's ironies aplenty in characters running into past versions of themselves and others in their various pasts (or else, why bother), but the moments pretty much all work and every insight feels earned.
What doesn't feel earned is the hasty way the main plot gets set up, or the lazy way every element is shoe-horned into a final battle sequence that's too long - and too foreordained - by half. "Spoiler alert" is hardly necessary (even if I'm writing this well after the world has seen it), because nothing here can't be guessed or figured out well before it happens. Who lives. Who dies. And Why It Has To Be This Way.
No film, no series of films, really, could wrap up a 23 film story arc on even half the notes Endgame tries to fit into its lavish spectacle. It's impressive, really, how much works in spite of, rather than because of all the visible effort holding it together. The grace notes in Scarlett Johanssen's performance. The calmly centered work of Paul Rudd. The move to put Karen Gillan's Nebula at the center of the proceedings, and the great work she does. Chris Hemsworth's brutalized and redeemed Thor. Tilda Swinton, naturally.
Less effective are the obvious, over the top requisite moments - especially the "let's give it to the girls" part of the final battle, which just underlines the tropes rather than confronting them. And altogether ineffective are the range of performers - The Wakandans, Captain Marvel, Groot and poor Jeremy Renner - who simply don't have enough to do. Even Spiderman's reappearance (sorry to shock you) doesn't lead to much centrality in the final act (and a final scene that, hard to believe, feels even less earned than Infinity War's). Contracts or no, this isn't a film that requires, or can carry, cameos from everyone under the sun, or universe... or whatever.
Like many a big lumbering corporate effort, Endgame succeeds most and best when it's not trying, or pushing, or insisting. On balance, the film works better than it rightfully should, wraps up nicely, and leaves room for a future that still feels like it might (still) have some surprises. Whether this two part gargantuan megaplex behemoth was necessary, or even good, may be simply the wrong question. For what it is, Endgame is a serviceable attempt to wrap up a massive collection of story arcs, touch on some universal themes, and set up some further storytelling. Like everything else about it, accepting that means trying to keep things in perspective, which the film accepts only occasionally, if that. Perhaps now, since we've seen the mountain top, we can relax this urge to turn story telling into a mountain. Or at least, Mt. Everest.
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