Avengers: Endgame Review (And BONUS Game of Thrones Rant!)

This weekend might be too much to handle, as not only is Endgame here, so is the epic battle in Game of Thrones where I’m sure numerous characters are about to meet their demise. 

I’ve started writing this review before the episode of Game of Thrones premieres, so I have no idea what to expect. 

One long running franchise is ending while another is wrapping up. This is a big weekend for nerds.

Before I get into my review of Endgame, of course spoilers inbound, obviously. But I want to really stress that here, as I know a lot of have been waiting to see this movie. Especially Hank who has to wait sometime later in the week to see it, as all the showings at his theater were sold out. 

Unless of course you wanted those front row seats, but what madman would want to sit there? 

I went to the 12 PM showing and that was sold out ,I then had to come back to the 12:30 showing where I immediately grabbed the coveted handicap seat. No way am I sitting next to an annoying kid or sweaty fanboy. 

If you remember my review for Infinity War, I mentioned how someone brought their damn crying baby to see the movie. Well! They did it again, as sporadic baby screaming would fill the theater during important moments. It got so bad towards the film’s giant climax someone yelled at the baby, telling him to SHUT UP! I didn’t see this, only heard it, but in my head I pictured a man turning around in his seat and yelling into the baby’s face. 

I get you really want to see Endgame and you’re saddled with a baby, but seriously think about what’s going to happen when you bring your infant to see a 3 hour long movie. 

It isn’t like they were going into this oblivious to the runtime, as the theater manager personally made an introduction before the film started, explaining that the film is 3 hours long, and there was no after credits sequence. 

I’m also sad to report there was no Butterbean sighting, the giant suspender wearing bald gentleman I’ve been seeing at my screenings lately. I wanted to take a quick picture of this elusive creature out in his natural habitat, but alas no such luck. 

Maybe I’ll spot him for my next nerdy film outing. Pokémon Detective Pikachu maybe? 

I’ve been abstaining from watching any movies the last couple of days, since the last two I watched were complete and utter garbage. Drunk Parents being maybe the worst movie of the year, with What Men Want possibly coming in a close second.

I’ve mostly been binging Fear the Walking Dead, since I’ve been on this zombie kick after watching the amazing Netflix series Black Summer.

One thing you’ll notice when watching Endgame is how well they managed to not give us a single glimpse into what exactly the damn plot of this movie is. 

What if I told you this was a time heist movie like Back to the Future 2? 

Before all that…

Can we talk about Captain Marvel for a bit first? So… is she gay? I know I slightly hinted at it being the case in my review for the film, but I feel for some reason compelled to address this. 

I mean, her and her “friend” were raising a child together before her accident. Add that with her lack of any other love interests, and her new butch hairstyle, I’m calling lesbian on this. She looks and dresses like Portia de Rossi, Ellen Degeneres’ wife, not to mention Marvel stated that they are planning on having an openly gay character. 

But you also have to keep in mind that they really are banking on this doing well in China, where they have very strict censorship laws. Meaning no gays and no ghosts. They got issues with ghosts too for some reason. 

I believe it is called queer coding or queer bating. Where a character is clearly gay, it’s just never formally addressed, only hinted at. I believe that’s exactly what they’d doing with Captain Marvel. 

Hey gay community, look over here at this possibly gay character even though we’ll never admit to it, but hint at it just enough to reel you in so you’ll watch and support our movie. 

I care less about Captain Marvel being a lesbian and more about why she is even introduced into the franchise to begin with. After Infinity War, they made it seem like she was going to be this integral part to take down Thanos. When really she’s kind of barely in this movie. And when she does show up, she barely does anything. Hell, Ant-Man was the one who ends up saving the day with his idea to go back in time to stop Thanos from collecting the stones.

There is this moment where all the ladies in the group get their moment to shine and fight together, which made all three of the ladies in the theater happy to see, but besides that, I have no clue why they felt it was necessary to introduce Captain Marvel besides having another female superhero. 

She’s also insanely overpowered, hindering on Mary Sue levels. 

Okay, folks, it’s now Monday for me and I have a lot to say about episode 3 of Game of Thrones. Talk about a Mary Sue, as that’s exactly what Arya is. She’s this unstoppable OP characters that can kill anyone because she had that weekend of half training from an assassin’s apprentice. Where she spent most of her time blind.

You might think this is a bit of a departure, but in the grander scheme of things, I think I almost have to talk about this, as Saturday was Endgame, arguably the biggest cinematic event to happen maybe ever. And Sunday featured the largest event in cable history or at least it should have been.

If you don’t follow Game of Thrones, feel free to try to find where I start talking about Endgame again, or just give up and watch porn or something.

There should be a lot of crossover however with fans that went to see Endgame and who love Game of Thrones. Nerdom is one giant inbred fuck fest, so it’s very rare to see one not enjoy the other. Plus, it is a weekend where two Starks saved the world, so I have to at least mention Game of Thrones in this review. 

I did not enjoy Sunday’s episode. Almost immediately after it ended, it started to sour for me. So much so, I’m no longer looking forward to the last three episodes.

Jon Snow should have been the one to kill the Night King. The whole Night King, white walkers, that’s his whole damn story arc. And they handed it off to Arya, who has nothing to really do with this, her whole thing is revenge. It’s so damn asinine, that the more I think about it, the angrier I get. 

Episode 3 marks the 3^rd time Jon and the Night King have come face to face in a stare down. This should have been the time they finally clashed swords. Hell! We never even see the Night King pull out his sword that I guess he just keeps for decoration on his back. Or maybe it’s this really weird freezer burn, like the Night King’s version of a skin tag. 

So does that mean Arya is the promised one? She’s Azor Ahai? Because she doesn’t fill any of the requirements. If not, then does that mean the prophecy was complete bullshit? 

If Jon wasn’t brought back to life to kill the Night King, or is Azor Ahai, there to save the world, just what the hell is his purpose? It seems like those who were brought back by the Red God or God of Light I think it was… have a purpose and once they fulfill that purpose they then die. 

So is Jon’s only purpose to impregnate his aunt? How goddamn lame is that? 

Having Arya kill the Night King is unexpected! Yeah, so would Reek’s severed dick coming back to life and choking the Night King to death. It would also be completely fucking stupid. About as stupid as Arya turning into mist, sneaking past hundreds of white walkers and wights, only to fly out of nowhere from behind and stab the Night King to death in a single blow. 

And way to really blow it with the Night King, as they’ve been building him up as this ever growing threat for several years now(like Thanos), only to be killed instantly by a Mary Sue character(Captain Marvel?). 

At the very least, it should have been Jon and Arya tag teaming the Night King(like in Endgame). Sure, give Arya the deathblow, I don’t care, just don’t make Jon so damn useless. All he does this episode is bump into Danny on her dragon, fail to notice the trench needed to be lit, even though he was right next to it! And then the kicker, gets pinned down by a zombie dragon where his big strategy I guess was to just yell at it. 

The whole thing read like shitty fanfiction or shitty Arya fanfiction which is even worse. It didn’t feel like Game of Thrones. Especially!!! Since no real major characters died. 

I was expecting a major main character death toll to happen, but no, just some minor characters here and there. Let’s be honest, Grey Worm should have died as soon as they realized they couldn’t light the trench on fire using a dragon. He should have gone out there and sacrificed himself to light it. 

Brienne should also have died, as her arc was essentially over with. And Jaime should have also died, ironically it should have been protecting Danny when she fell off her dragon. He’s this guy who has always wanted to be a hero, he killed a mad king and gets ridiculed as the King Slayer. This battle against the Night King was his chance to finally be the hero he’s always wished to be. 

Oh Sam, another character that has plot armor. This asshole should have died 30 times over now. 

Such shitty writing, I can’t see how they can repair this idiotic move. This move they made is about as moronic as sending the dothraki out first to get instantly slaughtered. 

You could also tell how much they cut corners with the budget, as you could barely see what was happening at times. Add that with the shitty editing and then the snow storm… it was just a major letdown. 

Okay, now that that is out of my system, it’s time to get back to Endgame. How will I let the reader know it’s safe from Game of Thrones spoilers. Oh, I know!

WELECOME TO WAKANDA, MUTHAFUCKA!

Something some guy yelled out in the theater when Black Panther finally showed back up. 

I recently just watched Infinity War again before seeing Endgame, and I have to say, that film should not work. And yet it does. The pacing really moves along, and how they integrate characters into the story is really fantastic.

Endgame picks up almost immediately after the events of Infinity War. Tony has been floating around in space on a broken down ship, trapped with Nebula. When it seems all it lost for them, on the verge of death, Captain Marvel pops up and brings them back home to earth. 

The only reason to see the Captain Marvel movie I guess is for that one scene to make sense. Not even the whole movie, just the damn after credits scene where the Avengers are trying to figure out her pager and she shows up to get the scoop on what’s been happening. 

Once Tony tells what’s left of the team what happened, everyone still willing and able head immediately off into outer space, find Thanos and cut his head off. But not before learning he already destroyed the Infinity Stones. 

So now our heroes are stuck with no way to fix what Thanos has done. 

Then it flash forwards 5 years later. 

The film actually starts off with Hawkeye teaching his daughter how to hit the bullseye with an arrow, only to have her and the rest of his family turn to dust. It’s a pretty effective sequence with a ton of emotional weight to it. 

It is 5 years later and the Avengers are either scattered across the map or galaxy. Captain Marvel is off going something, I don’t know. We don’t see her again until the very end of the movie where she does nothing. 

War Machine is off trying to track down Hawkeye and Rocket, along with Nebula, are… I forget what they were doing. 

Meanwhile, Scott Lang aka Ant-Man, has been trapped in the quantum realm, where a rat saves him by turning on the shrink machine, releasing him. 

He quickly learns what Thanos has done, showing up at the Avengers’ headquarters with an idea on how to fix things. With Pym Particles he can theoretically travel back in time to before the Snap or even before Thanos even got his hands on the Infinity Stones.

But to work out the science of this they need a bigger brain. That leads us to Tony Stark, who now has a little 5 year old girl, living peacefully in a cabin out in the woods. 

He refuses to help make this time machine, fearing it will take away his happy life.

Now needing an even bigger brain, the group goes to find Bruce who has mind melded with The Hulk, making them one person. But this whole time travel ordeal is a bit over his head. He’s willing to try anyway, since it is the best option they have.

Hulk manages to figure out time travel… but time only effects the person, so Scott Lang only manages to go through time by ages, from old man to little baby. 

Tony however managed to figure it out, but will only help if they bring people back, that’s it. 

Agreeing, they set out to hunt down the Infinity Stones during the events of the first Avengers movie, where three stones happened to be in New York. 

Basically, Endgame is Back to the Future 2, where our heroes have to travel back in time, through the previous movies and steal the stones. 

Hulk, Captain America, and Tony Stark go back to when Loki attacked New York during the events of the first Avengers film, while Rocket and now super fat Thor travel to Asgard during the events of the second Thor film which I’m blanking on the name of… Dark World? I think it has to be my most disliked film of the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

Nebula and War Machine go back to the beginning of the first Guardians of the Galaxy film before Peter Quill stole the power stone. 

Hawkeye and Black Widow head off to find the soul stone, where Red Skull is there once again to tell our heroes what to do to get the stone. So has no one done this before? No one made it this far and learned of the price you have to pay and they what… they just walked away? Thanos was the only one to ever pull this off? Really? That seems highly unlikely. 

Hulk is tasked with getting the time stone from Doctor Strange, but he’s still an actual doctor, leaving Hulk with having to convince Tilda Swinton she needs to have it over. She fears that taking the stones out of time will cause alternate realities.

But… excuse me if I’m wrong but that’s not how the time stone works, right? So why would using a time machine be any different than how the stone manipulates time? 

A lot of my issues I do have with the film actually stem from their use of time travel. They are minor gripes that I have, but still they are still gripes. 

Like for example, their plan is to grab the stones and bring them back to their timeline, 5 years into the future. They don’t want to change time, only bring back the people Thanos killed. But for those people it will be like nothing happened, but for everyone else, 5 years have still gone by. 

So what about Peter Parker? It’s no surprise that he comes back, especially since they’ve been idiotically showing the trailers for his new film even before Endgame even came out. 

So he gets poofed back into the world, for him like it was yesterday, but for everyone else, it has still been 5 years. Meaning, wouldn’t all his classmates, at least the ones who survived, wouldn’t they all have graduated by now? So how do the events in Far From Home make any sense? Unless his whole class went poof too…

At the end of the film we see that Captain American decided to stay in the 40’s with Peggy Carter, but that causes some issues as well. For example, that means she never moved on, she never married and had kids with the person who then had Agent 13, aka Kate aka Sharon Carter. So does that person just not exist anymore? 

While Hulk is trying to talk Tilda Swinton into getting the time stone, Tony and Captain America, plus Ant-Man are trying to grab Loki’s staff and the space stone. 

Captain America runs into his future self, thinking that he’s Loki in disguise. The two fight and check each other’s asses out. Tony drops the space stone when Hulk angrily enters the room because he wasn’t allowed to go in the elevator with the rest of the group.

Loki then takes the stone and vanishes. 

I guess that gives them an opening for Loki to possibly still be alive for future movies, maybe another Thor movie if they decide to, though three is the usual limit for these.

Losing the space stone that means they now have to jump back to when SHIELD had it, meaning Tony’s long dead father. 

Hulk gets the time stone once he explains this was what Doctor Strange wanted. If he says this is how it should be, then this is what needs to happen. So in the end she hands over the stone. 

War Machine and Nebula knockout Quill and get their hands on the power stone before Thanos’ goons can show up. But there’s an issue, Nebula has some feedback interference with her past self, causing that version to get visions from her future self. 

The problem with that is, her past self is still loyal to Thanos. 

Thanos learns what the Avengers are planning but more importantly, how they’re all collecting the Infinity Stones for him. Now all he has to do is sneak his Nebula in with the Avengers and bring him and his army to the future. 

Meanwhile, Hawkeye and Black Widow now have to play rock, paper, scissors to decide which one of them gets the honor of killing themselves. Hawkeye wants to be the one to make the sacrifice, since he has gone down a dark path, killing criminals. 

But when you sacrifice yourself to gain the soul stone, that’s it, you’re dead forever, not even the time stone can bring you back. 

Black Widow takes the leap, giving Hawkeye the chance to see his family once again. 

Now with all the stones, Hulk takes it upon himself to be the one to wield the homemade Infinity Gauntlet. He does the snap, bringing everyone back who Thanos killed, but as a result it severely damages his arm, killing him if he wasn’t already made from gamma radiation. 

Fake Nebula sneaks off to use the time machine, bringing Thanos and his army to the Avengers’ doorstep. 

Thanos bombards the headquarters with missiles, completely destroying the complex, sinking most of the Avengers underground.

Fat Thor, Ironman and Captain America make it out of the rubble to face Thanos. And oh boy did the audience love this. I forgot I was even seeing this in a theater with people for a second, then I was quickly reminded once everyone started loudly cheering. 

Struggling to defeat Thanos… okay let me pause a bit here. 

Just how strong is Thanos exactly? 

You’re telling me he’s as strong as Thor, a god but also stronger than Captain America and Ironman combined? What race is he and how did they manage to wide themselves out since they seem pretty indestructible. 

And this was without ANY of the Infinity Stones. He’s just mega overpowered. 

While they are fighting Thanos up top, Hawkeye is running with the homemade gauntlet, trying to keep it out of Thanos’ henchmen’s hands down below.

When things are looking like he might lose, Thanos decides to unleash his entire army.

That’s when all the heroes that went bloop from the snap, are now back and ready for a fight. 

Doctor Strange opens his teleporter thingy he does, bringing all the different heroes and Wakanda’s army into the fight. 

Eventually Captain Marvel shows up to get the gauntlet… I actually kind of forget what her goal was. She has the gauntlet and wants to take it to the time machine in the back of Ant-Man’s van? I think that was it. But Thanos destroys the machine, cutting off their escape. 

Eventually Thanos does get the stones, only to have Tony steal them and use them to vanish Thanos and his army. 

Amongst all this there’s also future Nebula fighting past Nebula and Gamora deciding which side she’s on. Eventually they have to kill past Nebula but I guess that means future Nebula is fine because you can’t change time, only split it off into an alternate reality? 

So now we have Gamora, who completely just disappears after her quick interaction with Peter Quill. She kicks him in the balls and we never see her again. 

Using the stones kills Tony and everyone mourns his death at his lake house and I mean everybody, even the little kid from Ironman 3. 

No longer needing the stone, they give Captain America the task of returning them, only to have him stay in the past with Peggy Carter. Both Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans’ contracts are up, so it was pretty much a given that this was how it would end. 

Captain America never fit in with this time, he always longed for Peggy, even trying to move on with her granddaughter, which is creepy. So it makes sense that they’d find a way to give him his happy ending.

For Tony, I mean, this was foreshadowed all the way back to Avengers: Age of Ultron, right? It was pretty much a given he wouldn’t be making it out of this alive. They did however give him a really cool death, telling Thanos I am Ironman before giving him the snap. 

Old man Steve Rogers shows up and hands off his shield to not Bucky the other super soldier but to Falcon? So he’s just going to be flying around now with a shield? Okay, if that’s how you want to do things.

And I guess that’s it for Avengers. 

Is this movie as good as Infinity War? Hmm… I don’t know. The pacing is very different for Endgame. They spend a lot of time with our broken heroes wallowing in sorrow and self-doubt. Which is what needed to happen since they failed miserably. 

I thought the Thor stuff was hilarious, as an added bonus we see that everyone from Thor: Ragnarok didn’t die horribly, but are on earth playing videogames. 

I liked that the humor is reserved this time around. There are still some funny moments, but they know when to be funny and when to be serious. That’s something these films have always excelled at.

I give Avengers: Endgame a SEE IT rating, because obviously. 

Next week I’ll be reviewing… I don’t know yet. More Game of Thrones maybe, we’ll have to see how much they fuck up the rest of the series.

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