I saw Avenger’s Endgame twice and loved it both times. It’s a great movie and I’ll definitely end up buying this stream on my Amazon prime (I don’t own any physical Blu-Ray’s anymore, if you’re curious). I give this movie a solid A, despite its clear script problems that I’ll soon address.
From here on out, there’s going to be spoilers. So if you didn’t see the movie yet, please stop reading, because it’s a movie you should watch without any precursors.
ACTING PERFORMANCE
Everyone gets an A except for Brei Larson, who came off very flat. I don’t blame Brei at all for her performance. When they filmed Avengers, the backstory to Captain Marvel was not written. So she came in there firing blind and was not aware of her motivation or purpose in the MCU. Thank God she only showed up for a few short scenes in this movie.
GRADE: A
DIRECTING PERFORMANCE
The script was filled with holes, character motivations along with backstories were screwed up, yet the movie was incredibly directed and held our attention for close to three hours. That’s an amazing accomplishment. Bravo.
GRADE: A
“Avenger’s Endgame is an awesome movie”
CONTINUITY PROBLEMS
For some reason, Hollywood, or artists in general, have a way of screwing things up when they exercise some form of artistic license. It never fails. Artists feel they need to have their spin, and they write in their agenda, their narrative, to make their voices heard. In my world or storytelling, this is a cardinal sin. Even if a character is fictional, the creative team should practice an imaginative responsibility to keep characters and scenes as true as possible.
In other words “keep it canon – stupid!” And especially to the universe that you created, in this case the MCU!
That was directed towards Disney.
The inconsistencies in Endgame started with the opening scene when Tony Stark recorded his pseudo last words to Pepper with his Iron Man helmet. If you remember in the previous movie Infinity War, Iron Man’s helmet was made up of nanotech and had the ability to instantly heal itself.
In the current MCU, Iron Man’s body armor doesn’t consist of a physical helmet. It just appears. And this holds true for all of the Avenger’s Body Armor in Infinity War. It’s all nanotech.
So if it’s all nanotech, where did Iron Man’s physically damaged helmet come from?
Check out the fight scene below. Thanos tears off Iron Man’s helmet, just to have it replaced a second later.
More inconsistencies continued within the first scene when we learned that Star-Lord’s ship, Milano, had run out of power and our remaining living heroes were just floating in space, waiting to die.
Apparently, the creative team conveniently forgot how smart Tony Stark was. Did they forget that Tony Stark created an arc reactor in a cave in Afghanistan that was more powerful than a nuclear power plant? Could he not fashion some type of battery out of the parts in the Milano? Rocket fashioned a doomsday device out of spare parts, if you remember. Did the creative team forget that Tony Stark had a functioning arc reactor still on his chest that was more than capable of powering the Milano?
Also, did the creative writing team forget that space is a vacuum? So just because a spaceship runs out of power, doesn’t mean it’s dead in the water. They’re not like cars. The International Space Station travels at 17,150 MPH with zero thrust power. That’s a big consistency problem, one that has to do with simple science.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are a plethora of inconsistencies in here that I won’t list because there’s too many to write about.
GRADE: D
TIME TRAVEL BUNGLE
Endgame tried to get cute with a new spin on time travel that doesn’t make much sense.
“Think about it: If you travel to the past, that past becomes your future, and your former present becomes the past! Which can’t now be changed by your new future!”
– Bruce Banner explaining why changing the past can’t change the future.
I had to read it a couple of times over and then some, and it is still hard to comprehend because it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. Does that make any sense to you? If your past becomes your future, then you really are not time traveling.
The screenwriters even took a swipe at every single time travel movie out in an attempt to reprogram the audience’s understanding of time travel.
Of course, if Time Travel were as simple as Back to The Future, then the Avengers would just have to travel back to a pivotal point of time, kill baby Thanos, and the universe would be fixed. But they needed a much better movie, right? I mean, it is really that simple.
Here are just some of the time flubs that just don’t make any sense
- When the Ronin (formerly Hawkeye) obtained the soul stone, the current present should have been reversed because Thanos would not have all the infinity stones to snap his fingers.
- When Gamora jumped into our present time, the current present should have been reversed for the same reason. No dead Gamora, no soul stone.
- When the Avengers removed the infinity time stones from the timeline, it should have reversed the destruction of Thanos.
- When Thanos decided to go after the Infinity Stones in the present timeline, the current present should have been reversed, because he no longer was hunting the infinity stones in the past.
- Apparently, Doctor Strange said to Tony that he couldn’t tell him the future or it may not happen. Why could it not happen? Did he think Tony Stark was too selfish to sacrifice himself for the world?
- Drunk Thor took his hammer from the past. That means he didn’t have it to win most of his battles after Thor 2. What in the world?
- Present Nebula kills past Nebula – but Present Nebula doesn’t seize to exist. Uhm – what?
- When Peter Parker came back to High School, his friends who didn’t turn to ashes, were still there. They hugged as though they hadn’t seen each other in years – five years to be exact. Why were his friends still in high school? I thought they were geniuses, not in the remedial group and held back five years. The only excuse that would be acceptable is if ALL of Peter Parker’s classmates were unlucky to turn to ash.
Time travel is pretty easy to understand. When there’s a fork in the road and the left turn kills you; things can change if someone from the future comes back to make you turn right. This formula not only makes common sense, but it’s also been the norm for all time travel movies.
There is an argument that movie followed different theories of time travel: branch point versus fixed loop. It honestly doesn’t matter. What does matter is that it’s confusing and not explained well during the movie.
Endgame really messed up on this one. Endgame fails at time travel.
GRADE: F
TONY STARK DIDN’T NEED TO DIE
Thanos used the Time Stone to bring Vision back to life from shrapnel. Doctor Strange could have used the Time Stone to do exactly the same thing for Tony. The Time Stone doesn’t have to turn back time for the entire universe. It can be very selective on who time-reversal effects, that’s why it’s so powerful. Why Doctor Strange didn’t use the power of the Time Stone to save Tony Stark is beyond my comprehension.
When Strange could have stepped up to the plate to play hero, screenwriters decided that he shouldn’t. And it’s not as though he wouldn’t have saved Tony. Saving lives is what Doctor Strange loved to do.
Endgame failed at common sense heroism.
GRADE: F
CAPTAIN AMERICA ENDING FLUB
We honestly don’t know what happened in the ending because Captain America chose to keep quiet. But we are lead to believe that Captain America traveled back in time to finally have his first dance with Agent Carter to live happily ever after with her.
The only problem is that the current Agent Carter was married and had a daughter. That means, Captain America screwed up the timeline, and Agent Carter’s daughter vanished from the face of the earth when Steve Rogers decided to get selfish.
As you can see, the script is littered with problems. There are way too many plot holes to count. Vloggers are having a field day with it.
The script gets a big fail, obviously.
GRADE: F
BUT OVERALL – THE MOVIE WON
I forgot to mention the Social Justice Warrior Woman Power scenes that seemed force-fed into the movie every single time Captain Marvel showed up. Every time Captain Marvel appeared, the men were in trouble. The cheesy shot of the day goes to the women of the MCU when they assembled to form an O-Line for Captain Marvel. But even with that SJW narrative forcefully written into the script, and the overall quality of the script failing in every category imaginable, the movie was still incredible.
It’s just one of those movies that you have to forgive and just enjoy. Check your critiques at the door and savor the moment. If there is one big lesson that Endgame does teach us is that we need to sometimes let go. This movie gets a huge A from me.
GRADE: A
Steve Young
