(Image courtesy of Marvel Studios)
Given that Avengers: Endgame appears destined to blow through every existing box office record within its first month of release, it was inevitable that our intrepid team (three of them, at least) would weigh in with another thoughtful Tomato Slam — with Tim and Wade reporting from Los Angeles and Mark from Paris.
Without further ado (and yonder spoilers that may ensue)…
WADE MAJOR: I’m going to come right out and say it — Avengers: Endgame is the best Marvel movie yet. Glorious cherry on top of a ten-year-long odyssey of nearly two-dozen movies. And I credit Kevin Feige for becoming the Marvel producer/executive auteur. It’s the thing missing from DC — the singular vision for the universe. There’s no way for me to get into plot particulars because revealing ANYTHING would be a miserable spoiler. Everything was surprising, exhilarating and, most importantly, emotional. I cried a half-dozen times because it’s not about saving the world or humanity — it’s about family. It dares to wrestle with big, existential issues, confront some surprisingly grown up questions and take enormous narrative risks. I’m also heartened at how much better the Russos have become as directors — all the things that looked amateurish in Captain America: Civil War are resolved here. They’ve grown and in all the best ways.
This movie gave me everything I wanted in terms of fan service, and then some. If the next phase of Marvel movies comes close, it will still be a triumph. This is going to be the biggest film of all time — I will not be surprised to see it blow past Avatar and hit $3 billion globally. Hell of a script, hell of an epic, three hours blows by — I can’t wait to see it again. And I haven’t said that about any Marvel movie before.
TIM COGSHELL: It’s too long. Three hours and forty point-five seconds from first frame to last.
But I like it too. A lot. This is actually a bigger deal than Wade loving it, because you, sir, are inclined to love it – from birth. You are a fan-man.
I’m not a fanboy for superhero movies. I was once, long-long ago. The first Superman I saw with Bridget when we were sixteen. Her dad took us. We saw it twice more. Same with Superman II. I can still watch both of those movies. I hung in there through that terrible one with Richard Pryor. Bridget, brighter than I ever was, tapped out after Superman II. I didn’t think about it back then but the reason I loved Superman and Superman II, is because they are both about family and love. They’re both about a man who will do anything for love. Turn back time. Give up his powers. The others – I don’t even remember.
The next one that I was truly smitten by is that first Spider-man film with Toby Maguire, because it, as Wade notes regarding Endgame, is also a movie about family and love. It’s really just about Peter being in love with and willing do anything for Mary Jane, including save the city, but mostly because Mary Jane is in it. Same with Black Panther. A movie about how black folks – as a family – are going to treat each other, with a superhero plot shoved in the middle of it.
The ones that don’t work get that balance wrong. When they are about the plots and the schemes of this villain or that demon they are a crushing bore.
Endgame, walks the edge of getting it wrong. Sometimes it is too much about the through-line plot of most of these movies – those silly, cheap-ass looking stones on that even cheaper looking glove and blah…. blah… blah.
That is all so dumb. I ignore every bit of it.
Fortunately, Endgame ultimately gets it right. It is a movie about families, even the assholes in the family. It’s a movie about the power of women. All powerful women. Women who sacrifice everything for their boys. Even when they don’t deserve it. Which is almost always. It’s a movie full of love stories. So many love stories. Boy-girl love stories. Father-son. Father-daughter. Mother-son. Love unrequited that loves anyway. Love story after love story.
I’m a sucker for a love story. I cried, too. More than once.
I don’t need all that war. These movies all endorse war. Endless war. I hope this series is actually over. I hope the war is over. I hope the love stories win.
MARK KEIZER:
Regarding length: I would argue that if Disney demanded the film be no longer than 2h30 or even 2h45, it would be a much lesser film. Because Marvel would be forced to remove everything that makes Endgame such a satisfying experience: the character interactions, the quiet moments that last a beat longer than you expect, and the bickering that establishes the Avengers’ bond as familial not superheroic. I actually underestimated Marvel in this regard even though, as CineGod readers might know, I have an enormous amount of respect for what Kevin Feige has achieved. They spent 22 movies defying the odds when it comes to finally either 1) making an outright stinker or 2) risking our disinterest because the films were starting to feel the same. Yet Endgame still surprised me by dabbling in a kind of melancholy that you only see in the more “out there” superhero fare like James Mangold’s Logan. I credit screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely with this, but also Robert Downey Jr. Iron Man is the biggest personality of all the characters, the one with the smarts, the snark, the charm and the big mouth. But here he uses those tools to thoroughly sell us on the idea of a conflicted Tony Stark. At the beginning, Iron Man is content with his current life and would prefer not to help the team. And although rejoining the Avengers to help save the world was obviously going to happen, in the moment I bought his argument and his sincerity. That’s good writing and good acting (and good ad-libbing, a key component to Downey Jr’s success with this character).
PS: I didn’t cry once. Seriously, what is wrong you two?
TIM COGSHELL: I know what’s wrong with me. Wade?
On that length… trim every major fight by 5 minutes. All minor fights by 1 minute. You can kill 25 or 30 right there, not a word of dialogue is missing.
They are boring and done.
If you cut one sentence from all of Josh’s soliloquies… another two minutes.
MARK KEIZER: There’s no way Disney would allow Marvel to trim fights. They’d be forced to trim character and dialogue, which don’t work as well overseas. But you bring up a good point: most of these Marvel movies end with some ridiculously overlong, CGI super-battle and I just can’t imagine any fan over the age of 12 wants that. I do understand the impetus here, though: Thanos has destroyed half the world (or is it half the universe? That’s never made clear in Endgame), he’s the most dangerous enemy the group has ever faced and this is the last film in this phase of the MCU, so the final fight has to be worth it. But we’re 22 movies in and about 20 of them refused to end until they disgorged a vomitous amount of heroes and villains and monsters and robots all firing, punching, kicking, flying, crashing and dying until I’ve lost track of the characters, lost track of time and lost the will to live. So I get the purpose here, I just wished they hadn’t used that chit 20 previous times.
Can I say something irrelevant? In the film, the Avengers have to break into three smaller teams to find the Infinity Stones and as they zapped their way to their respective locations, I immediately thought of Star Trek IV, when the crew of the Enterprise broke into teams to, amongst other things, find the “nuclear wessels.” Then, NO PLOT SPOILERS, I PROMISE, the closing credits of Endgame begin with the signature of each actor from the OG Avengers crew which serves to signal their farewell. That’s how Star Trek VI ended! VIVA STAR TREK!
Anyway, back to Endgame, I did find myself checked out after a very satisfying first 45-minutes when the plot had to kick in. There’s a rather whorish device they contrive to fulfill their mission (sorry for being vague, but I’m avoiding spoilers) and even though Don Cheadle (playing Wing Man or Metal Man or Man Man, I forget) calls it out, it still introduces an element of confusion and betrays some story laziness. The only good that came out if was it allowed for the film’s final 5 minutes, which were wonderful.
WADE MAJOR: What’s wrong with me? I’m a sucker for heavy, existential, life-contemplative, philosophically-dense, reflective dramatic interaction. And this is loaded with those moments. Plus, I’m a dad. There’s a lot of “dad” stuff in this movie. Literally piles of it. If you’re a dad — every solitary one of those moments will hit you square in the heart. And lest anyone forget, Markus and McFeely did three Chronicles of Narnia movies (totally underrated) before they became go-to Marvel guys. Those Narnia films are filled with deep emotion — far more than wham-bang action. This is their wheelhouse. Endgame was a return to what they do best — not a departure from it. And that’s also why it feels so satisfying. But it’s also because of what I said on FilmWeek this past week — this is a case of executive auteurship, the first in movie history. Feige is the author of this universe. This is his oeuvre. And he should be damn proud of it. Being a geek paid off. No MBA needed apply. Hire the guy who loves the stuff, and the audiences will come and share his enthusiasm.
Also – I’m not the guy to look to for support in cutting anything. If it were up to me, the movie would be a half-hour longer. I never wanted it to end.
And Mark, you Marvel-ignorant slut, Don Cheadle plays WAR MACHINE! What cave have you been living in?
My question would be the one raised on FilmWeek when we discussed this: Can DC make a recovery and compete with the MCU at this stage? Or is Marvel’s emotional head start too great? Do audiences have bandwidth to buy into another connected universe? Even if done well? Or will DC have to resign themselves to rolling the dice on one-offs?
TIM COGSHELL:
Cheadle is the second War Machine. It was meant to be Terence Howard, who is in the first Iron Man.
Now he a former drug-dealing impresario on Empire.
Worked out for everybody I’d say.
MARK KEIZER: The DC versus Marvel question is a fascinating one. I agree, and wish I had an answer to, the two things you mention:1) there’s nothing like your first love. So now that the orignal Avengers are presumably out of the picture, will we love Spider-Man, Captain Marvel and the new Captain America as much as the Avengers we originally fell in love with?
2) DC is starting to right its ship but almost by dumb luck more than any great plan. Their DC Extended Universe situation was a bust, but individual films like Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Shazam! have lifted them off the canvas. Now what are they going to do about that? Make decent individual films and be happy with that, or use those characters to attempt another Justice League-type uber movie?
Also let me add this: if I could ask Kevin Feige one thing, I’d actually ask him two things:
1) was the MCU originally and always envisioned this way, or did Iron Man do surprisingly well and you said, « I have an idea. Let’s build out an entire universe of interconnected films? »
2) if Marvel had the rights to Spider-Man in 2008 would the first MCU film still have been Iron Man?
WADE MAJOR: Unanswerable hypotheticals unless you get Feige one-on-one someday at a party. So go get on that. Until then — Marvel is the only party in town that matters — and the whole world is invited.
###