Cinematography:
Trent OpalochComposer:
Alan SilvestriCast:
Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Paul Rudd, Benedict Cumberbatch (more)VOD (3)
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The fourth instalment of the Avengers series is the once-in-a-lifetime culmination of 22 interconnected films and the climax of an epic journey. Earth’s heroes will finally understand how fragile our reality is – and the sacrifices that must be made to uphold it – in a story of friendship, teamwork and setting aside differences to overcome an impossible obstacle. (Disney / Buena Vista)
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Reviews (17)
Avengers assemble! A crushing beginning, a pile of iconic moments, where whispers of disbelief mixed with deafening silence spread through the cinema, three movies in one, the best performances in eleven years (Robert Downey, Jr., Jeremy Renner), and a phenomenal conclusion that defies even the most daring expectations. In a way, three hours is too little, because those three hours are so full of glory that even a few days after the screening, I am still only retrospectively recalling fascinating scenes that were cautiously concealed under my first impressions. Definitely the movie of the year and, in terms of its pop culture impact, also a well-deserved, undeniable, extremely moving, and – precisely due to the intimacy of individual interactions – the unrivalled event of the decade.
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I'm not a big fan of comic book CGI coloring books, but I have to capitulate here. Especially thanks to the middle section, when it clicks together beautifully like a sophisticated jigsaw puzzle that recalls all the previous Marvel movies, and the film rolls out such incredible fan service that it's almost admirable. That and the last nostalgic quarter of an hour will actually show how the suits from Marvel have it perfectly thought out in advance, even ten or fifteen years in advance. A perfectly tuned machine that is unparalleled in today's film studio constellation. Kevin Feige is a stud.
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Though not outright admiration, Endgame does at least deserve sincere recognition for how the creators managed to link the more than twenty films of the Marvel Universe so far, developing motifs from pretty much every one of them, but still holding things together somehow. And also because, even though the result was clear in advance (that end of Infinity War would be reversed), the way there managed to surprise more than once. The time travel scenes are really quite original. On the other hand, the effort to show at least for a moment almost every single character that’s had screen time in the ten-year history of the Marvel movies ended up hurting it. I felt it was way too overcrowded (both in the number of characters, as well as in the motifs, styles and moods), and I wasn’t able to fully focus and immerse myself in it. It also carries on with the typical problem of the Avengers films, the lack of a face of their own (which doesn’t apply to the solo outfits). It’s simply aesthetically uninteresting. I’m also giving it a 7/10, and the lower rating is because of what they did with Thor. That wasn’t humour, that was pure cringe.
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SPOILERS INCLUDED: Every long-running franchise matures with its viewers and incorporates motifs that resonate with their current ages. Just as Harry Potter advanced from children’s adventures to teen angst and turmoil, Marvel advanced through 22 movies. However, it is rather humorous that the longed-for culmination is dad cinema in spandex. Unfortunately, this does not pertain only to the central dirty trick on the female audience in the transformation of the physiognomy of the whole series’ main hunk, but primarily to the central motif of Endgame. It’s nice that a certain percentage of male viewers will proudly admit that they shed tears, but is that actually evidence of their supposed sensitivity or even of the film’s qualities? Do we rather have nothing to do with the fact that the film’s creators captured the pain of the current crisis of masculinity, where men themselves have made the whip in the form of accepting the diktat that they have to provide for their family and, concurrently, that they do not have to abandon their own self-fulfilment? What does it say about our society that if, in bidding the hero farewell, we hear the standard “I love you”, that would be an object of ridicule, but if hear “Don’t worry, we’re taken care of”, young fathers and husbands shed emotional tears? I also said to myself that hiring Alan Silvestri was a fine attempt to add a bit of a melodic background to a series afflicted with the curse of forgettable music. However, I did not expect that the master would steal from himself, resulting in a programmatically intentional copy of Forrest Gump. While you don’t know what you are going to get out of life, everything in this box of chocolates is by the book, including, unfortunately, the development in the style of the oft-ridiculed cliché “I have two days until I retire and I am the only character who has a private life in which something like this could happen”. But it is clear that these are merely the bitter words of someone who is not invested in the series as a true believer. After all, the individual scenes cannot be appreciated because there is no continuity. Seriously? Isn’t this pseudo-argument simply a justification for the time invested, because the mechanically cranked-out scenes of absolute exertion without structure simply cannot in any way enrich any memories? The fact that Iron Man argues with Captain America is no deeper than when your parents argue for the millionth time. Not because you have seen them go through a relationship crisis, but because in both cases only those affected play transparent roles and act in accordance with automatically accepted formulas. Let’s stop kidding ourselves that the MCU is anything more than a brilliant PR victory over viewers and critics because it was able to create the impression of an event and a unique experience of something that is calculated to the smallest detail, not from the bottom up by individual artists, but by seasoned corporate creatives from the top down. And that it was a wild ride and not at all a sure thing from the beginning. Does anyone still remember Hulk today? Not Ang Lee’s version, but the one with Edward Norton. That was a critical moment in the whole Marvel campaign, because for the first and last time, the creatives let go of the reins and lost their control over the result, after which they deleted the film and destroyed Norton’s career. This was followed by a strictly managed one-sided campaign in which the directors were either no-name assemblers of a puzzle pre-designed by the showrunner, or craftily chosen names that, long before the premiere, lent themselves to shaping the viewers’ acceptance of the film as something serious (Branagh), dark and gritty (Black) or refreshingly light-hearted (Waititi), even though all Marvel movies are always built based on the same foundation. Those who resisted were not allowed in at all or were promptly sent packing (Wright). In this there is something unique, a value and place in the history of the cinematography of this mammoth endeavour, regardless of the fact that the emperor not only has no clothes, but struts around for his fans. The icing on the cake is the vanity found in the closing credits, where the stars of the series even condescend to sign autographs for their admirers. While, like every proper manipulator, the true creators and geniuses of the MCU enjoy their position in the shadows.
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If I were to look at it as a separate film, then I would have reservations about the lengthiness of the first (dramatic) third. God forbid, I could get bogged down in the time paradoxes of the second third, and God forbid I could be offended by the sentiment of the final third. But The Avengers are in a category for themselves, and blaming them for not being coherent doesn't make much sense. The films combine so many characters, positions and partial motifs that I can't think of a better solution than the similarly conceived 182-minute catharsis. If we start to see Endgame as a season finale, everything suddenly makes perfect sense. The focus on the key characters in order to give their existence absolution, the way in which elements of nostalgia (Endgame is a matrix of memories of previous films) are humorously inserted into the action, and even the epic climax that has the emotional impact of a falling meteorite. There is a feeling that there is a plan behind everything, which is so lacking in DC. The individual pieces fit into a jigsaw puzzle, and if you want one example, use Thor. I don't expect ground-breaking thoughts, formal stimuli or psychological depth from Marvel. I expect satisfaction. If anything comes after Endgame, it's a feeling of pleasant satiety. It may not be a generational Star Wars caliber event, but it's still more than a dignified end to hours of fun and years of honest work. If Nolan's Batman showed us that a super protagonist must be human to the point that he ceases to be super, the Avengers insist that he can be both. It may be naive, but it is uplifting.
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Photo © Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
![Avengers: Endgame - Photos](http://image.pmgstatic.com/cache/resized/w663/files/images/film/photos/163/429/163429417_81f630.jpg)
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