Avengers
Engame: On Your left.
I
think enough time has passed now for anyone who’s a proper fan of the MCU to
have seen the film, so if you have any complaints about the spoilers in this
review, IT’S YOUR OWN BLOODY FAULT!
If you’ve
read any of my reviews in the past you already know I’m a Marvel super-fan. I
have seen all of the last 21 movies at least twice and I get inappropriately
annoyed at everyone else’s opinions when ranking them. So first off here’s my
categorically correct order of all the marvel films worst to best, without
'Endgame':
21 -
'Thor 2' - hated it.
20 -
'Incredible Hulk' - Just has no relevance to the current MCU.
19 -
'Thor' - Boring, Did not use Chris Hemsworth to his brilliant, full potential.
(Weird eyebrows)
18 -
'Doctor Strange' - Okay film ruined by a massive cop-out ending of boring a
baddy until it goes away ....
16 -
'Iron Man 3' - Just stupid and I was so disappointed that they’d got rid of the
AC/DC soundtrack.
15-
'Captain America' - Fine, but phase 1 Cap is so dull compared to how awesome he
is in 'Endgame'.
14-
'Guardians of The Galaxy Vol 2' - Controversial opinion; paled in comparison to
the first one and was vastly less entertaining.
13-
'Captain Marvel' - I hate to say it but it’s just not up there with the best of
them for me but I did like the film a lot, it just had a few issues.
12 -
'Iron Man 2' - Guilty pleasure within the franchise for me because I LOVED Sam
Rockwell’s performance in it. I admit the rest of the film was average.
11 -
'Antman' - Lots of fun but I couldn’t take it seriously.
10 -
'Avengers: Age of Ultron' - Another guilty pleasure that wasn’t so good but I
loved James Spader's voice over.
9 -
'Spider-Man: Homecoming' - before 'Spider-Man Into the Spiderverse' came out it
was my favourite Spider-Man movie.
8-
'Captain America: Winter Soldier' - Great narrative and the first actually
interesting plot line.
6 -
'Iron man' - Started it all.
4 -
'Black Panther' - Stunning film!
3 -
'Thor: Ragnarok' - Just bloody brilliant with stand out performances from
Chris, Mark and Jeff!
2 -
'Avengers' - Gave me a very similar feeling to 'Endgame' when they all rallied
and it was the film that made me fall in love with the MCU.
1 -
'Infinity War' - That ending left us all shaken and it also created one of the
greatest and most relatable baddies of all time.
Now
I know you’re all going to have a huge problem with all of that but trust me on
this ... I’m right.
So
the big question is; where does 'Endgame' fit into all of this? And the answer
is, I truly don’t know. The ending was so satisfying, unlike anything I’ve ever
seen, that it can’t not be at the top .... can it? Well possibly not, so let’s
break this down.
This
film for me and a lot of people falls into three acts--
Act
1: I truly respect the Russo brother's balls for the wonderfully slow pace of
the beginning of this film. Right from the opening scene with Hawk Eye spending
time with his family you knew with a sinking heart what was about to unfold. It
was beautifully done and really set the tone for the film.
The
rest of the team then go to take back the stones and kill Thanos but as all the
smartest (nerdiest) of us had predicted he’d already destroyed them and
therefore no hope for recovery. Thor’s then vicious execution was a ‘hammer’
blow for the audience that was then further hit home with the snap to black and
the appearance of the fatal words '5 years later' on the screen. I can’t
imagine even the die hard fans saw this coming and the feeling of desolation
and despair was ripe in the atmosphere of the silent theatre around me at the
late night, first showing. The film progressed from there nicely with a well
mannered rat inadvertently saving the whole universe by letting Antman out of
the Quantum Realm.
This then sets up the Second Act; Antman, after a lovely
reunion with his daughter, proposes using quantum time (insert sciencey stuff
here) to steal the infinity stones back and use them to reverse what has
happened. Seems simple enough? Well apparently not because the Second Act for
me was a bit of a mess. The Russo brothers obviously didn’t want to get caught
out in any time-related plot holes so made it all ludicrously convoluted whilst
simultaneously explaining barely anything. In the end though, after the sad
death of Black Widow (but shot for shot a remake of Gamora’s death) they get
the stones and The Hulk uses them to bring everyone who was dusted back .... we
think.
Act
3: As this happens, past Thanos breaks into the present and blows up the
Avengers HQ with everyone inside (but not killing anyone) and all out war
breaks loose. Cap, Iron Man and Thor take Thanos on (minus any infinity stones)
and Thanos, the badass that he is, defeats them all pretty easily if we’re
being honest. The fight isn’t without merit however, as Thor seems down and out
for the count his hammer springs into life and who is it caught by? None other
than the Cap himself! This induced a huge cheer from our (now 2am) audience,
including myself, but it’s too late. .....Queue stunning, cinematic, landscape
shot of Cap standing alone with a hoard of Thanos’ army charging towards him in
a Helms Deep-like battle sequence. All seems utterly lost .... AND THEN as the
now very well known music swells you hear over the crescendo Falcon say “On
your left” ... Hang on? .... isn’t he dead? .... OOHHH SHIITT!!! They’re
back!!!
This
is where I fell apart as a human for the rest of the duration of this film.
What with the beautiful, heartfelt callback to 'Winter Soldier' and then the
rest of "the fallen" returning through Dr. Strange's portals, the
tears started to fall. Reinforced by meaningful reunions between Star Lord and
Gamora and, more importantly, Tony and Peter; the tears kept coming. Then, when
Tony finally sacrificed himself to destroy Thanos it was all too much.
With
the universe saved there wasn’t much left to do but for Cap to put the infinity
stones back into the past so the story could play out the only way it was meant
to, from the beginning. A really nice touch here, which I quietly applauded,
was when Cap failed to return immediately and decided to take “the long way
round” ('Doctor Who' reference for you there), we see an old Cap sitting on a
bench waiting to hand over the ‘baton’ (his shield) to Falcon, our next Captain
America. The film finishes with The Cap and Agent Carter finally having that
dance 80 odd years in the past and it fades to black...
I
was left, as I’m sure you all were, in stunned silence. What a truly amazing
ending to a fantastic franchise that wasn’t afraid to “take the long way round”
and create 22 movies for THAT pay off, and boy was it worth it.
This
is why I struggle to rank this film amongst the others because I did have
issues with certain parts of it, but a film that moves you that much
emotionally has to be highly regarded.
Therefore
I give this film a RATING OF 9.3/10 and I will be seeing it many more times, as
will you!
To
hear more chat about this movie click the link below for our
Reel Easy Podcast where we give this film all our attention in An Endgame
Special!
I’ve
been Christopher Whitmore, thanks for reading.
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