Avengers: Endgame
28/04/19 Filed in: Cinema
Straight off, I must say that I have become a bit disenchanted with the superhero scene. Possibly it's simply a matter of too much of a good thing, or perhaps too much sameness. I certainly haven't seen all the Marvel films that led up to this finale, and it's clear that to appreciate Endgame fully you are better off knowing all that has gone before.
Reviews are overwhelmingly positive and box office receipts support the hype. But God knows how much it cost to have all the superhero actors in one film. It just had to be a success to pay its way, but I guess that they were fairly confident that it would be.
So what did I think? Certainly I had some difficulty knowing where everybody fitted in, and having not seen Infinity War was probably the biggest disadvantage. I could more or less put two and two together and get 3¾, which was good enough to enjoy the film. It's a minute over three hours, but it zips along so you won't probably notice the time. Although that said, a larger than usual number of people popped out during our viewing, presumably for comfort breaks. However, the structure of the film is such that missing a bit in the middle hardly matters. A lot of the first half is scene setting, pulling together the fallout from past events, picking up on the lives of the surviving Avengers, and devising a plot strategy that allows the less fortunate victims of Infinity War to be brought back into play.
To start with everybody is a bit glum, although Thor seems to be enjoying his new life of drunken indolence, beer belly and all. But the reappearance of Ant-Man, thanks to a foraging rat accidentally activating the quantum tunnel, gives everybody new hope. He believes that his quantum experience holds the key to reversing the carnage of Infinity War. Cue super-brain, Tony Stark (Iron Man), who is reluctant to disturb his new-found family happiness but can't resist a scientific challenge. And bingo, a time machine — well, sort of, assuming you even begin to understand quantum mechanics.
The preliminaries over, let the action begin. The objective is to go back in time to collect the Infinity Stones and use them to reverse the extinction perpetrated by Thanos. If you haven't seen the earlier films that last statement will probably mean absolutely nothing! The Avengers team have one shot at this, because of a shortage of Pym Particles, which are needed to resize the team members so that they can enter the quantum realm. But not everything goes to plan and an extra trip back to 1970 is needed to get more Pym! This provides Captain America with a glance of his past love, Peggy Carter, an event that will eventually be seen to shape his future.
The stones are obtained, but not without a lot of action and some sacrifice. And even then Thanos proves to be no pushover. His daughter Nebula, having moved over from the Dark Side, is still vulnerable to his influence. This makes her somewhat of a Trojan Horse in the Avengers camp, and the quantum experience somehow produces two versions of her — quantum entanglement no doubt!
Of course there's a major battle at the end, which appears now to be a necessary part of any action adventure in this genre.
If you're a Marvel devotee, then this is essential viewing. If, like me, you have become a bit inured to the whole thing, then you may think that the film is just a contrivance to bring together the Marvel superheroes. That said, there's plenty of action and the characters, licking their wounds after the Infinity War fiasco, are arguably given greater depth than has been the case in some of the earlier films.
And on a final note, Captain Marvel as the latest addition to the team seems to possess such extraordinary powers one is left wondering why they didn't just leave it up to her, new hairstyle and all. But now I'm being a bit cynical!
The following trailer is largely devoted to filling in the background and gives very little away with regard to the film itself, quite intentionally I'm sure.
The preliminaries over, let the action begin. The objective is to go back in time to collect the Infinity Stones and use them to reverse the extinction perpetrated by Thanos. If you haven't seen the earlier films that last statement will probably mean absolutely nothing! The Avengers team have one shot at this, because of a shortage of Pym Particles, which are needed to resize the team members so that they can enter the quantum realm. But not everything goes to plan and an extra trip back to 1970 is needed to get more Pym! This provides Captain America with a glance of his past love, Peggy Carter, an event that will eventually be seen to shape his future.
The stones are obtained, but not without a lot of action and some sacrifice. And even then Thanos proves to be no pushover. His daughter Nebula, having moved over from the Dark Side, is still vulnerable to his influence. This makes her somewhat of a Trojan Horse in the Avengers camp, and the quantum experience somehow produces two versions of her — quantum entanglement no doubt!
Of course there's a major battle at the end, which appears now to be a necessary part of any action adventure in this genre.
If you're a Marvel devotee, then this is essential viewing. If, like me, you have become a bit inured to the whole thing, then you may think that the film is just a contrivance to bring together the Marvel superheroes. That said, there's plenty of action and the characters, licking their wounds after the Infinity War fiasco, are arguably given greater depth than has been the case in some of the earlier films.
And on a final note, Captain Marvel as the latest addition to the team seems to possess such extraordinary powers one is left wondering why they didn't just leave it up to her, new hairstyle and all. But now I'm being a bit cynical!
The following trailer is largely devoted to filling in the background and gives very little away with regard to the film itself, quite intentionally I'm sure.