What's messier than time travel? Trying to make a sensible story that involves time travel. In this spoiler-free review, I go through why I enjoyed Avengers Endgame (2019) and why I consider poor humor and time travel shenanigans the two biggest flaws that shave off a point each from the overall grade. The final result is 8/10, an above-average movie with amazing action hampered by a contrived and poorly framed story that wastes so much potential.
Lasting 3 hours, Avengers Endgame (2019) is a fun movie and I actually enjoyed it. The first ~70 minutes are buildup where we're faced with the aftermath of Avengers Infinity War (2018). We meet Thanos and in two quick cuts his story wraps up. We also get acquainted with the grand weapon to rematch with Thanos and defeat him – time travel. During the buildup, I glanced at my phone 6-7 times just because the pacing was barely tolerable.
Introduction of time travel was so incredibly bad that I was actually thoroughly confused as to what was happening. Now I wish I had a time machine at that moment just so I can skip that part. I actually like reading science fiction and am no stranger to time travel or quantum realm theories but during those 2-3 minutes when I was meant to be sold the idea of time travel I had no clue what was going on. I can only imagine the average viewer munching on popcorn and just spacing out when characters start discussing quantum theory, suddenly going from "it's a distant possibility we can't control" to "let's use time travel GPS" (not a joke) without skipping a beat.
The following ~100 minutes were resolution and what an action-packed one at that! I was sucked into the movie and forgot about time, date and location. That's the part worth suffering the buildup for but the absence of Captain Marvel from almost all of it was suspicious, to say the least. She actually only appears for some 15 seconds at the start of the movie and some 15 seconds at the very end, with the explanation for her absence being, "Earth isn't the only planet in the universe, besides there's Avengers to protect the Earth, I have other places to be".
This piddling excuse is not even given in face-to-face dialog but through an off-screen hologram (!), indicating that rumors of reshoots that completely cut out Captain Marvel due to her controversial "white men don't need to see my movie" were true. Hollywood is such a cruel, vain place. All of her appearance in the movie was CGI, as if studio executives couldn't stand her face and just wanted it hidden in some way. The final 10 minutes are epilog, meaning our decrepit heroes get a farewell and a well-deserved retirement. If you didn't like the epilog in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), that's the kind of thing you're getting here, so you can essentially walk away when the action stops.
The entire movie is US-centric, referencing hot-dogs, gridiron and New York Mets for no good reason except to bludgeon the viewer over the head with "MURICA". Instead, I wish the movie showed some international post-snap coping attempts, for example by showing an Icelandic family grieving for the loss of their loved ones. You don't even have to give these people any dialog; mother's pain for the loss of her child is universal in any language. Imagine how powerful and emotional that would be but that chance gets wasted as well. This notion of a grand setup that gets wasted on stupid callbacks meant to evoke easy chuckles was persistent throughout the movie.
Marvel movies have always had low-key, charming humor that made our heroes appear more likeable and human. For example, I distinctly remember one scene from Thor (2011) where he lands in a small Hollywood town, drinks beer and delightfully smashes the mug on the floor, with two ladies that found him recoiling in terror while he laughs. That's the kind of simple, dumb detail that stuck around in my mind after all these years but in Avengers Endgame (2019) we find a whole new level of sewer humor that mistreats the source material, our heroes and the audience. I was on the verge of walking out, that's how bad the humor was. I'm just going to say it: Fortnite appears in the movie. Twice. What were they thinking? Which employee wanted to take revenge on the studio to the point of slipping in this cutting floor footage? This is the same kind of humor seppuku as in the Ghostbusters (2016) reboot that makes me think there must have been some kind of an overarching corrupting influence on both.
I noticed a distinct influence of hardcore feminism in Avengers Endgame (2019), in particular a scene near the very climax where we have all the female heroes come together to say what could legitimately be a feminist rallying cry: "She's not alone!" You'll know what the scene is as soon as you see it and I guarantee you'll chuckle at how seriously whoever put it there takes his role as a feminine empowerer. It's a minor issue and I didn't find it all that bothersome but do note that the latter part of the movie was strong enough to shoulder this kind of stupidity; in a weaker movie, this would be a serious problem.
There's also the same kind of push to display heroes as losers who want to give up, as we've seen in Logan (2017) with Wolverine. It's the self-deprecating type of storytelling only the worst stand-up comedians think is funny or noteworthy. I detest this attitude and have no inclination to watch situations that degrade the actor, humiliate the character they're portraying and insult me as a viewer who paid to see it. I find this a despicable assault on my senses that I want to avoid in my entertainment. From now on I'll be scrutinizing the cast and credits before watching any movie; if there's any known corrupting influence involved, I don't want to watch it, I don't want to know about it.
Oh boy. Time travel is rightfully considered a writer's crutch as it ruins all logic, denies all causality and destroys all tension. What's happening? The writer has no clue so neither should you. In an Avengers Endgame (2019) trailer, we see Avengers prancing around in white suits first worn by Antman when he entered the quantum realm using Hank Pym's shrinking machine. In his movie, Antman was warned that "going quantum" is a dangerous maneuver that shouldn't be attempted because there's a chance he might not come back; in Avengers Endgame (2019) the entire team not only goes quantum but also time travels back and forth without any qualms because those white suits apparently contain the strongest kind of armor – Plot Armor. I'm not saying time travel should be a taboo topic but that it needs to treat the viewer with intelligence; instead of hand-waving the explanation, present it in such a way that is clearly understandable, has strict rules and maintains tension.
Time travel makes it so there's no tension, because what's to stop our protagonists from simply save scumming until they get that one-in-a-million headshot and outright win? See the problem? To artificially cap the number of time travel tries, there are these Pym Particle batteries that our heroes always have just enough of to give it another shot. It's actually laughable how time travel in Avengers Endgame (2019) ruins all suspense and how Pym Particles, this completely insignificant McGuffin from Antman movies, had to be given such a key role because otherwise there's no restriction on time travel.
By the way, the shrink machine manages to survive the entire gap between Avengers Infinity War (2018) and Avengers Endgame (2019) unscathed (!), gets activated by a rat to move the plot along (!!) and then even survives almost the entire latter movie despite being at ground zero (!!!). It gets destroyed at one point but no big deal, because Iron Man just builds another time machine to tie up the loose ends, that's besides the one he also made in his compound and the mass-produced time travel GPS wristbands. See how ridiculous it is? We get from shrink machine to quantum realm to consumer-grade time travel in mere 180 minutes and it's just so grating to anyone who normally pays attention to the story and how our characters get from A to B.
Nobody's shocked or disturbed by the implication of time travel, there's merely a 2-minute literal training montage where our heroes perfect time travel and that's it. What's funny is how time travel is first flat out denied as impossible, then wholeheartedly accepted and then completely glossed over for no good reason; if they could make more time machines, why not make more Pym Particles and just keep trying? Everything that's been built up in the Marvel universe happened to rely on the most cliché of storytelling crutches but the worst part is that the movie itself acknowledges alternatives, one of which was witchcraft (you'll recognize the scene). Other characters are perfectly blasé about time travel too because, well, it seems everyone can and already does time travel but one option stuck out in my mind, one character that was already established as having the ability to manipulate time that could have served the plot with a legitimate alternative to the shrink machine.
To make the time machine situation even worse, there was an alternative solution but writers cut it off in one of earlier lead-up movies, Doctor Strange (2016). In it, we meet Tilda Swinton's character only known as "The Ancient One", a mysterious protector of the world who can use her non-combat abilities to manipulate time and space. She gets to be one of the most interesting characters in the entire Marvel universe because she's so layered and actually has a human side to her. Naturally, writers kill her off in that movie for no good reason but she's the kind of character that could stand on par with Thanos and provide the team with limited time travel.
The Ancient One was the one who originally used the Eye of Agamotto before handing it over to Doctor Strange, so having her use it again to open a time portal for the Avengers wouldn't be impossible or contrived as was turning a shrink machine into a time machine. She does feature in Avengers Endgame (2019) for some 45 seconds before being shoved aside in favor of Captain America punching himself. Simply watching those 45 seconds made me realize how well-written of a character she was. She also has access to the mirror dimension that isolates a person, which was used as a gimmick in Doctor Strange (2016) but here would become a key tool without killing anyone or doing harm.
It's such a wasted opportunity because we could have had The Ancient One face Thanos and perhaps push him out of the body like she did to Doctor Strange in his movie to change his perception, or even do combat in the mirror dimension with any amount of damage without affecting the rest of the universe. See how much flexibility that would give to writers? The two could have had such an incredible and deep dialog that would be remembered and rewatched just like the one Morpheus and Neo had when meeting for the first time in Matrix (1999) and then go to fisticuffs, with hadoukens and what not. It's what CGI was literally made for!
She could also provide limited time travel with a warning that "we all have just one chance in life and very rarely do we get a second chance, the scales of balance must not be disturbed", which would echo Thanos' words; the dialog practically writes itself. The two are actually such a polar opposite, it's incredible how the writers didn't see it to just have the two of them face it off. There's even the possibility of revealing The Ancient One's past to have some link with Thanos' past, because we barely get to know her in Doctor Strange (2016), which would then go on to become canon. Now that would have been a twist people would be debating for decades to come, a majestic setup for a battle of wills and minds between the two. She is tasked with protecting Earth so there's another convenient reason why she's there to face Thanos and why the fight is happening in New York of all places, because that was again established in Doctor Strange (2016) as a leyline nexus. It would have been such a great climax but no, The Ancient One is a one-off gimmick that's killed off just because the writers didn't realize what they had in their hands.
In my mind, this buildup of characters and storylines that gets wasted and mistreated for no good reason is the biggest problem of Avengers Endgame (2019) and the entire Marvel universe. Sadly, I believe this will only get worse, especially if this trend of injecting sewer humor and hardcore feminism in superhero movies continues.
Never before did I care about who the director and actors were but now it seems I have to carefully trawl through all the clickbait titles by outrage content creators just to discover to which degree the cast of an upcoming movie is willing to destroy the source material and humiliate me as a viewer for some cheap laughs and easy ego boosts. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed the movie but it left a bitter aftertaste that still lingers on.
In July 2019, I watched a video by Red Letter Media titled "Half in the Bag: Comic Con 2019, The Picard Trailer, Streaming Services, and Midsommar", where they show Comic Con footage featuring upcoming "Phase Four" Marvel movies. This turned out to be the most efficient way to screen movies for horrible sequels and spinoffs, as I could see the one that interested me – "Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness", apparently styled after Lovecraft's stories and slated to release May 7, 2021. I'll skip all the others, thank you very much.
In December 2019, I realized a major plot hole. Tony Stark gets the shutters in his compound lowered at one point for no good reason other than to close a gaping plot hole. I won't spoil what it is but if you think about it, you'll figure it out.