Avengers: Endgame Spoilers

[HowitzerJoe]

This is obviously only my opinion, but I will preface this by saying that I thought Infinity War was a better movie. This is not because End Game is bad by any means, but the beginning feels a little disjointed to me and the middle at times feels like the reigns were given to another director and screenwriter and the tone shifted to something comporable to Thor: Ragnarok, which was unexpected and didn't really fit into the narrative that the last act of the movie was headed towards. The last hour of the movie totally saved it for me and made the entire journey worth it.

The movie starts off almost seamlessy with where Infinity War and its end credit scene end, but it is never explained how Carol finds Tony. Are we to assume that she was sent by the Avengers to go out and search for him or did she just happen upon him and bring him back on a recon mission or what was going on? This does not really matter in the overall plot, but it was a question I asked myself that was never answered.

And in reference to my comment about the tonal shift, I felt like the almost the entire "time heist" portion of the movie and the Lebowski Thor was pure comedy, which kind of took me out of the movie. There were sweet moments, like the interactions between Tony and his father, but overall it was my least favorite part of the movie. It was also very difficult for me to enjoy Thor in this movie, as he was almost unrecognizable to me as a character. I understand a lot of people like the direction that Ragnarok took Thor in, but this was too much for me. Yes, I laughed, but I found Thor to be quite obnoxious as he let himself go and was so blinded by his failure and loss that he almost couldn't function as a character and was essentialy only played for laughs.

I also think that, unfortunately, Natasha's death was handled just as poorly as Gamora's and didn't move me at all. The constant back and forth between Clint and Natasha, fighting over who gets to sacrifice themselves came across as very silly and actually made people in my showing laugh. I think it went on too long and was quite overexaggerated. I do think sometimes less is more and handling these scenes a little more subtly would have been more effective. The death of an original Avenger should affect the audience more than what it did.

I want to say that I loved the final battle and how all characters got a moment or several moments to shine. But Wanda by far, had me cheering the most. She got her chance for revenge and retribution. When she told Thanos "you took everything from me" and her eyes lit up and the fight ensued I was so excited. And Thanos responding, "I don't know you" and she threatening him with "You will" was so satisfying. It was fantastic.

The ending left me satisfied and eventhough it pains me to have lost Tony, I feel like he died a noble and heroic death and left behind a lasting legacy fitting for the character. I am excited to see what the MCU has in store for us in the future.

Pros:
- The dusted returning
- A-Force
- Wanda fighting Thanos
- Cap wielding Mjolnir
- satisfying ending for most if not all characters
- I have new found respect for Rocket and Nebula
- gives a lot of hints for things to come in the future
- unpredictible
- epic battle that raised the bar once again for comic book action scenes
- Thanos got what was coming to him

Cons:
- disjointed beginning
- Carol is not as prominent as promised and still comes off a little unlikeable
- jarring tonal shift
- Thor essentially being reduced to comic relief
- Natasha's death was not handled well and many people in my showing laughed

Captain Marvel arrives after the snap. If you watched the post credit scene in Captain Marvel, you remember. Rocket knew the Guardians at least went to Knowhere first. And he should at least know about Titan. Perhaps he helped Captain Marvel track down his friends by pointing her in the right direction, and by proxy Tony was found. I dunno, but it didn't seem like a huge hurdle to me.