End Times: “Avengers: Endgame”

Avengers: Endgame (2019, Dir. Joe and Anthony Russo):

“Dear Mr. Fantasy, play us a tune, something to make us all happy,” Steve Winwood sings during the opening credits of Avengers: Endgame, and that sentiment pretty much sums up the Marvel cinematic universe in all its incarnations. When we last left the Avengers, the tune was anything but happy, with half the population of the universe (and most of the good guys) wiped out by invincible bad-guy Thanos. For a multi-billion-dollar franchise that has long rocked the box office thanks to zippy, feel-good entertainment, this was a bold (if canny) move. With a new bushel of heroes ready for the center stage, and several of the original actors getting pricey, long in the tooth, or just plain tired of the blockbuster hamster wheel, why not up the stakes, and introduce actual repercussions? Building on the foundations of Avengers: Infinity War, Endgame storms into theaters on a rare note of finality. For once, the Avengers must avenge something; for once, we are promised consequences.

To its credit, Avengers: Endgame comes out of the gates zagging instead of zigging. While Infinity War was stuffed with breathless subplots and frantic battle scenes, this one takes its time to settle in. After an extended prologue that underlines the bleak denouement of Infinity War and reminds us of all we have lost, we land five years in the future. The surviving Avengers are making out the best they can — which is to say, not well at all. Wracked by failure and PTSD, Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) has retreated to a rural existence with his gal Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow) and his moppet daughter Morgan (Lexi Rabe). Captain America (Chris Evans), bereft of any battles to fight, has been reduced to grief counseling. When she’s not leading what’s left of Earth’s heroes, Black Widow (Scarlett Johannson) battles depression with peanut butter sandwiches, while her buddy Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) has gone ronin in the wake of losing his entire family. Not all is doom and gloom, however; Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) has reconciled with his alter ego the Hulk, and is now a jolly green giant happy to take selfies with his fans. The state of erstwhile God of Thunder Thor (Chris Hemsworth) won’t be spoiled here, but suffice to say that the reveal of his current condition is the film’s best visual gag, featuring plenty of alcohol and an intense Fortnite gaming session.

Endgame‘s first act is a straight-up meditation on loss, a long breath before the deluge, the funereal tone hewing close to HBO’s “The Leftovers.” While it’s a welcome change-up to see our familiar heroes processing grief and struggling to move on, directors Joe and Anthony Russo (who helmed three previous Marvel entries, including Infinity War) don’t have much facility for sustaining this kind of mood, stranding the actors in pregnant, awkward silences. Fortunately, pep is restored with the arrival of Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man (Paul Rudd). Fresh from a stay in the Quantum Realm and raring to fix what has been broken, he suggests the tried-and-true trick that has enlivened sci-fi and fantasy adventures over the eons: time travel! Before you can say “Back to the Future” (Ant-Man uses the film as a touchstone for his plan), our heroes are off to different time streams in a last-ditch attempt to stop Thanos and put things right.

You would think that a time-heist caper, based on crackerjack timing and breathless improvisation, would be a blast. Well, sorta. Wisely, Endgame is blithe in matters of time travel — in addition to Back of the Future, every time-travel flick from Time Cop to Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure is name-dropped, and dismissed as completely inaccurate (The Final Countdown isn’t mentioned but is paid homage to in the movie’s finale). It’s best not to think too hard about the plot inconsistencies as they pile up, and just roll through with a bemused smile, like our heroes do. Would that the filmmakers could do the same, but screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely aren’t especially fleet or witty in the follow-through. The movie might be titled “Endgame,” but there’s little refinement in how the characters are maneuvered to and fro; it’s akin to watching the Hulk ham-fist his way through a chess match. Even though the movie pokes fun at Back to the Future‘s logic, it would have benefited from the escalating, tail-chasing chaos Robert Zemeckis brought to those films. The best timey-wimey complications Endgame can throw at us are Tony and Thor getting mushy reunion scenes with important figures from their pasts, or Captain America fighting off an earlier, more gung-ho version of himself. “I can do this all day,” the younger Cap boasts. “Yeah, I know,” the older, wearier Cap mutters.

“I know I said no more surprises, but I was really hoping to pull off one last one.”
— Tony Stark, Avengers: Endgame

The Russos, as always, are professional stage managers, but the leanness and exactitude they brought to their first Marvel entry, Captain America: Winter Soldier (still probably Marvel’s high-water mark) is a distant memory. Creaking under the weight of plot mechanics and end-of-the-world solemnity, Endgame has the shambling rhythms of a traveling circus that’s been on the road a little too long. Still, every once in a while, the quirks that distinguish Marvel from more generic product bubble up, particularly when Rudd’s Ant-Man stumbles into another galactically improbable situation. Turning gags like a bit with a taco and a landing spaceship into high comedy, Rudd steals the show, whenever Hemsworth isn’t barging on-screen. Thor might be reduced to a figure of fun in this installment, but Hemsworth, still high on the giddy fumes of Thor: Ragnarok, is up for the challenge, going decidedly unheroic at every turn, particularly when he runs into a familiar face in his past. He claims he’s not from the future; “You’re from the future,” he’s told, gently but firmly. “I’m totally from the future,” he blubbers.

None of the other actors have much fertile ground to work with — though kudos should be paid to Karen Gillan’s Nebula, whose metallic vocal delivery barely conceals oceans of hurt. Still, it’s difficult not to be stirred as numerous cast members take their final bows. Tasked with the dramatic heavy lifting, Downey and Evans are as good as they’ve ever been, doing what they do best: Evans radiating decency as Captain America, and Downey locating the reluctant heroism behind Stark’s high-tech jibes. Just as his cute little daughter says to him, “I love you three thousand,” the film wants us to love all these characters three thousand — and thanks to the goodwill they’ve earned over this past decade together, we do.

Good thing too, because in the third act everything collapses like a load of CGI-generated bricks, as we’re battered by yet one more gargantuan set-piece involving dueling armies set in a nondescript open plain. If nothing in the climax is as zesty or witty as previous Marvel finales, there’s just enough rousing moments to go around, as nearly everyone gets a turn in the spotlight. Only one moment rings hollow: a posed tableau of Marvel’s female heroes grouped together, ready to kick ass (even those who can’t actually fight), as if the marketers are desperate to remind us that yes, Marvel believes in women too.

It will not be revealed here who lives and dies in the end. Suffice to say that even though Avengers: Endgame plays a tune that turns out to be mostly the same old song, it does embrace consequences, and its emphasis on its flawed, very human heroes sees it through. Marvel has always walked a fine line between snark and sentimentality, and Endgame tips over the edge in its denouement, as fallen heroes are memorialized with a funeral befitting a head of state, while Alan Silvestri’s score goes bathetic (cue cornball acoustic guitar plucks). Or maybe this is just another example of Marvel knowing exactly what its fans want. Either way, it’s relatively easy to allow the filmmakers this one dip into weepiness. “I am inevitable,” Thanos says more than once, and it is inevitable that the Avengers machine will keep cranking away, but at least Endgame gives Downey, the linchpin of the whole Marvel shabang since his first Iron Man movie set the tone and template over a decade ago, an appropriate send-off. Never more affecting than when he stops blabbering and starts thinking, Downey’s final scene is played out in rare silence — not a bad finish for a film cycle that has often relied on pure noise. ■