Fans Read! The Golden Comic Book Rules Broken!

Rating: 6/10 (26 April 2019)

Let me start off by saying that large parts of this movie i liked, i have after all been living & breathing these movies much in the same way i have done the comic books my whole entire life. But sadly after this movie i left the cinema with the first bitter pill in my mouth for a long long time. Something about finality and saying goodbye never feels ok but in the context of many genres of film this is something we have all learned to deal with. In a comic book world though this is something that although sometimes broken is the one constant you can take from it. Real life sucks but in the world of Iron Man, Spider-Man & Cap & the like you know that you can always escape from the banality of a working life to the worlds that encapsulate the wonder & intensity of a life you secretly crave. I Feel sadly that in this day & age it seems a nessessity for film makers to have to use death to finalise a process, some even yearn for it, why so many fans complained that marvel didn't kill enough of their characters off before now is completely lost on me. Have they not read the books these characters come from? If your building a world, serialising it, would Stan Lee think that killing off Spider-Man for example half way through his first run would have been a good idea? a great way of bringing sadness into his excellent adventure? Yes Marvel Films are trying to bring things more down to earth, more realistic but do they really need to. The Excitement i used to feel before every new Marvel Movie i fear is going to be lost now. That's not all that's wrong with Endgame. I Felt like everywhere you looked something was slightly amiss. Time Travel Holes notwithstanding (You cannot make a time travel movie without holes, never) But i felt that the worst offender here was Captain's Arc, it may on surface feel like a nice poetic way for him to bow out but really? would Cap ever put his shield down for himself, the sheer essence of the character is he will never stop fighting the good fight, not even for himself. That's not to mention going back in time & hooking up with Peggy would mean her kids would never be born! not the act of a selfless patriot. Yes they wanted so much to give these great actors a royal sendoff but at the expense of everything they had built up until now. So sad that we have to now watch those older films knowing that these versions of the characters are actually not those versions we loved so much from those comics we read as a kid. Endgame has some moments of splendour. Cap standing solo against the might of Thanos & his army is one of the shots of the century, also his roll call of 'Avengers Assemble' a line we have waited for a long time (The End of Ultron doesn't count as he never completes it) Rocket Raccoon & Thor again seem to be almost the perfect buddy comedy in waiting. Jeremy Renner also stands out in this film a lot more than previous & get's some meaty action & dialogue & Once again Tom Holland manages to affect me with his acting chops with his final scenes, no mean feat as i feel Homecoming was the weakest entry in the marvel cannon up until now. Also Paul Rudd does what he always does best & brightens every scene he is in & the Women of Marvel have their golden 'Libertators' moment in the final battle with Valkyrie & The Scarlet Witch both showing what they are made of. But it's the fatal flaws of this movie that stand out for me much more than those great moments that a 3 hour Marvel movie will always have. The Golden Rules are broken in this one because someone thought it needed to happen but not thinking about it's core audience, not thinking about the world in which they have almost seamlessly constructed over the last 11 years. Actors move on yes, but these characters live on in their worlds because that's their job, to take us away from the mundane, to encourage us to be better, to give us something to look forward to. Endgame on the whole feels a little generic, like someone really just wanted to put a giant dot above the I. People have been hailing this film as a masterpiece, my only feeling about this is that they are the ones not completely invested in this universe, no true fan of Marvel Comics can walk out of the theatre feeling satisfied about this film, they just can't. When the dust settles i feel that the huge mistakes, gambles even with this movie will really shine through & Endgame will not feel like the satisfactory conclusion of this saga that they actually really wanted. 6/10 for the moments of greatness but on the whole i wanted to score it less for reasons mentioned.