Avengers: Endgame - The DVDfever Cinema Review by Dom Robinson

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Avengers: Endgame: I’ll give no spoilers unless I use a spoiler header below (so you can’t come across them without actively clicking on them), but it has been well sign-posted that it won’t be a happy finish for everyone.

Still, anything must be a step-up from the end of Avengers: Infinity War when half of the universe was turned to dust. So anything resurrected from that is a bonus for them, but I certainly knew beforehand that there would be some characters who wouldn’t be so well off by the time the end credits roll, even though I didn’t know who. This immediately made me hope… (and, let’s start the spoiler headers early)

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that certain ones would snuff it because I’ve had enough of them. Meanwhile, I hoped that at the end of this three-hour fest, we’d still have Mantis (Pom Klementieff). She’s awesome.

I’ve said before how I’m getting tired of superhero movies, but Hollywood in general seems to be sinking under the weight of blockbusters which are nothing but sequels and reboots, and all of this is putting me off going to the big screen again, as there are more indie movies that are worth watching, as well as those dramas which ARE released in cinemas, but will lose nothing by being seen on the smaller screen.

Later this year, as well as Spider-Man: Far From Home – so, even before you see Endgame, you know Spidey will be fine), there’s Godzilla II: King of the Monsters, Men In Black International, X-Men: Dark Phoenix, which looks like a rehash of X-Men: Apocalypse but with a different protagonist, Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, and for kids, Detective Pikachu.

As we saw in the trailer, Iron Man is about to drift off into death, but if the later trailers showed him walking about, how did he manage that? Well…

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Captain Marvel found him at the 11th Hour and flew him home. Huh? Okay, so I haven’t seen her origin film but I had no interest in it, but this made no sense.

We have a bit of humour where Rocket is referred to as “Build-a-Bear”, and there’s lots of arguing between themselves early on, but the main aspect of the story seems pretty much wrapped up within 20 minutes, or can it go on? Yes, it can… “five years later” and it’s ridiculously confusing. Perhaps that’s how they get people to attend multiple screenings, in the hope they’ll understand it.

And now time for some big spoilers, or perhaps confusion on my part as I try to get to grips with what on Earth (or in space) is going on:

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1. With Captain Marvel able to fly about in space like Princess Leia, and with time-travel now possible, surely that means that nothing will ever cause a problem ever again? 2. I’m guessing that when Thor gets fat, he’s modelled on the later years of Jim Morrison. 3. Without the irony of the fact they go back in time, and that they make references to Back To The Future, they play on the way the paradoxes happened in Back To The Future Part II, and the second act just feels like an overlong tribute to that film. 4. There was a load of wibbly wobbly timey-wimey palava, and I found myself losing track of how all that fitted together, especially when all the dead came back to life. It all felt a bit too quick, and I’m wondering what I missed. Then again, I know it was part of it all when the good guys had all the infinity stones, and maybe I did realise how it happened at the time and have since forgotten, since it’s a three-hour film, and I can’t be expected to remember every last detail. 5. Stan Lee also gets his final cameo, this time when Captain America and Iron Man go back to New Jersey, 1970, and he’s seen driving a car and shouting, “Make love, not war!” 6. And in that timeline, it was interesting when Iron Man met his own father, in 1970. Similarly, I did feel sorry for Captain America when he chanced upon an older Peggy Carter in the room next to where he was, and he couldn’t get through to speak to her – and imagine the consequences if he had. That said, I’m still sick of Captain America and he’s long outlived his time in this franchise. 7. There’s a group scene at the end, as everyone gathers for a particular occasion, and it looks as fake as can be, as it’s full of CGI as people look spliced into the scene. They certainly don’t look like they were all actually in the same place.

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Avengers: Endgame Side-by-side IMAX trailer

And as for a potential toilet break, I decided it was just easier to protest about the lack of an intermission by… letting myself go, and claiming I was overexcited. Anyhoo, I’m 100% convinced they could easily have slotted one in at 83 minutes, just after the scene where…

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Captain America fights himself, knocks out his younger self, and does a callback joke about his backside. Straight after that comes another scene between Hulk and The Ancient One, and after that, things ramp up a gear, so given that the audience would’ve sat through adverts and trailers before the film, then this would’ve been the right place as a mid-point.

And finally, the mother of all spoiler sections, so DO NOT READ if you haven’t seen the film (or don’t care)

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When it comes to who dies… Iron Man – Yes, his electric heart finally gives out, after he has a final tussle with Thanos, steals back the gauntlet stones, snaps his fingers and turns Thanos and his cronies to dust. It all proves too much for him and he shuffles off his mortal coil, just as he finally got to live a normal life with his daughter. Bummer, eh? Still, Robert Downey Jr has had a damn good run, given how he’s been pretty much the main character in what feels like almost all of the Marvel films to date, but it’s 10 out of 22, including Endgame I had a feeling Captain America would call it a day, too, and he kinda did. I figured when he went back in time to take back the stones, he’d not necessarily come back to the present day, and clearly, he went back to be with Agent Carter, as when we saw him, he WAS back in the present day, but as an old man, so he must’ve gone back to the ’40s to be with her again, and now he has naturally come back to the present. As for Black Widow, it looks like she’s dead, but quite frankly, you know there’s not a chance she’ll be dead because Marvel have already announced she’ll be in a film of her own, and there’s no point making an origin movie for her if she won’t ever return… unless that announcement was a lie? Ooh, the plot thinnens!

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And as for a mid-credits and post-credits scene? There is not one of either. For a change. Okay, this film has brought a definitive conclusion to Phase Three for reasons you’ll discover if you’ve not already seen what’s behind my spoilers, but I still thought it might’ve allowed for a teaser for Spider-Man: Far From Home, even though I have zero interest in watching that movie.

In fact, I was in two minds about doing a vlog about whether there’d be a post-credits scene and decided against it because it was completely improbable, right? I first thought about doing it because the timings came out about how long the credits take (which would show when the cinemas should raise/lower the lights), as everyone wanted to know how long it lasted precisely. There was no post-credit scene factored in. It could’ve been a red herring, and they always have one, don’t they? I should’ve gone with my gut feeling 😉

Then again, if you make a vlog that doesn’t tell Reddit fanbois what they want to hear, they get antsy and down-vote your vlog for no good reason.

Will I see any more superhero films? I’m interested in Birds Of Prey, any potential Suicide Squad and Justice League sequel, as well as the same for Doctor Strange and Guardians Of The Galaxy, but most of them can go whistle.

Avengers: Endgame is available to pre-order on Blu-ray, 3D Blu-ray, Amazon Video, 4K Blu-ray and DVD.

Avengers: Endgame – Official Trailer

Detailed specs:

Cert:
Running time: 181 minutes
Studio: Marvel Studios, Walt Disney Pictures
Year: 2019
Format: 2.39:1 (ARRIRAW 6.5K, Ultra Panavision 70 (anamorphic lenses)); 1:90:1 (IMAX version)
Released: April 25th 2019
Rating: 5/10

Directors: Anthony Russo and Joe Russo
Producer: Kevin Feige
Screenplay: Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (based on the Marvel comics by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby)
Music: Alan Silvestri

Cast:
Tony Stark / Iron Man: Robert Downey Jr
Thor: Chris Hemsworth
Thanos: Josh Brolin
Bruce Banner / Hulk: Mark Ruffalo
Steve Rogers / Captain America: Chris Evans
Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow: Scarlett Johansson
Hawkeye: Jeremy Renner
James Rhodes / War Machine: Don Cheadle
Doctor Strange: Benedict Cumberbatch
Peter Parker / Spider-Man: Tom Holland
T’Challa / Black Panther: Chadwick Boseman
Gamora: Zoe Saldana
Nebula: Karen Gillan
Loki: Tom Hiddleston
Vision: Paul Bettany
Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch: Elizabeth Olsen
Sam Wilson / Falcon: Anthony Mackie
Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier: Sebastian Stan
Heimdall: Idris Elba
Okoye: Danai Gurira
Eitri: Peter Dinklage
Wong: Benedict Wong
Mantis: Pom Klementieff
Drax: Dave Bautista
Groot: Vin Diesel (voice)
Rocket: Bradley Cooper (voice)
Pepper Potts: Gwyneth Paltrow
Peter Quill / Star-Lord: Chris Pratt
On-Set Rocket / Kraglin: Sean Gunn
Shuri: Letitia Wright
Cull Obsidian / On-Set Groot: Terry Notary
Ebony Maw: Tom Vaughan-Lawlor
Proxima Midnight: Carrie Coon
Corvus Glaive: Michael Shaw
Driver: Stan Lee
M’Baku: Winston Duke
Voice of Friday: Kerry Condon
Brock Rumlow: Frank Grillo
Laura Barton: Linda Cardellini
Happy Hogan: Jon Favreau

And some I’ll hide behind a spoiler…

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Howard Stark: John Slattery Ancient One: Tilda Swinton Peggy Carter: Hayley Atwell Jane Foster: Natalie Portman Aunt May: Marisa Tomei Korg: Taika Waititi (voice) Ramonda: Angela Bassett Hank Pym: Michael Douglas Janet Van Dyne: Michelle Pfeiffer Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross: William Hurt Maria Hill: Cobie Smulders Jarvis: James D’Arcy Pepper Potts: Gwyneth Paltrow Alexander Pierce: Robert Redford Nick Fury: Samuel L. Jackson Old Steve Rogers Double: Patrick Gorman Young Hank Pym: John Michael Morris

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Dom Robinson

Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.

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Avengers: Endgame – The DVDfever Cinema Review by Dom Robinson

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