Tuesday, July 2, 2019

Ranking: Avengers: Endgame

I've now seen Avengers: Endgame twice. It is the second part (not a sequel) of last year's Avengers: Infinity War (which I reviewed here). It is the culmination not only of the two-part Avengers movie, but also of the entire 22-movie Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), which has been building to this point since Iron Man in 2009.

At the end of Avengers: Infinity War, cosmic bad guy Thanos had assembled the all-powerful Infinity Gauntlet, with its six power gems that have played a role in so many previous Marvel movies. Using the Gauntlet, he snapped his fingers and wiped out half of all life in the universe in one moment, including half of our heroes. Near the beginning of this movie, the narrative advances five years and we see how our remaining heroes and other characters are coping with their incredible losses. The answer: some better than others, but on the whole, not well.

When a freak accident causes Ant-Man to return from the quantum realm, where he's been stuck since the end of his movie from last summer, set just before Thanos's finger snap, he realizes that five years on earth was only about five hours for him. Time works differently in the quantum realm, and after describing his experiences to Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, our heroes theorize it might be possible to manipulate entrances and exits from the quantum realm to travel through time. That is, it might be possible to go back before Thanos assembled the power gems and rewrite history. Whether that works out or not, I will not reveal

I found Avengers: Endgame to be highly satisfying--not quite Excellent on my rankings list, but near the top of the Pretty Good movies. It's amazing how much the screenwriters and directors were able to put in--practically every character in the MCU has at least one meaningful scene--including some characters you may have nearly forgotten about--and yet it doesn't feel particularly over-stuffed. Thor and Hulk especially had some really fun character-building scenes. I'm not quite sure I can recommend it to everybody--if you haven't seen any previous Marvel movies, you have some serious homework to do before taking this one on. But for those already familiar with the MCU (you don't have to have seen every movie to date), this is a really fun movie.

I have previously ranked Ant-Man and the WaspAquamanAvengers: Infinity War, the Avengers movies, the Batman moviesBlack PantherCaptain America: Civil War, Captain Marvel, Dr. StrangeGuardians of the Galaxy 2LoganMan of Steel, the Man-Thing, the non-Marvel and non-DC comic movies, the other DC movies, the Spider-Man moviesSpider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the summer 2015 comic movies, the Superman moviesThor: RagnarokWonder Woman, and the X-Men movies.


As ever, my ranking system is
Green=excellent  Blue=pretty good  Black=Okay  Red=avoid
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Here's the master list of all comics movies I've rated so far, in order from best to worst:

Crumb
American Splendor
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Iron Man
Heavy Metal (1981)
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
Avengers
Superman (1978)
Captain America
Wonder Woman (2017)
Batman Begins (2005)
Captain America: Civil War
Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier
Avengers: Endgame
Spider-Man (2002)
Aquaman
X-Men 2: X-Men United
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Superman II
Batman (1989)
Ant-Man
Ant-Man and the Wasp
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Dr. Strange
The Dark Knight (2008)
Logan (2017)
Iron Man 3
The Wolverine (2013)
Guardians of the Galaxy 2
Sin City (2005)
X-Men: First Class
X-Men (2000)
Captain Marvel
Black Panther
Man of Steel (2013)
Avengers: Infinity War
Avengers 2: Age of Ultron
Swamp Thing (1982)
Spider-Man 3 (2007)
Iron Man 2
Watchmen (2009)
Batman Forever (1995)
Superman Returns (2006)
Thor 2: The Dark World
Incredible Hulk (2008)
Mystery Men (1999)
Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Man-Thing (2005)
Superman III
Supergirl (1984)
Thor
X-Men 3: Last Stand
Hulk (2003)
Fritz the Cat (1972)
Batman and Robin (1997)
Batman Returns (1992)
Superman IV

Amazing Spider-Man (2012) (Haven't seen)
Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) (Haven't seen)
Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) (Haven't seen)
Batman (1966) (Haven't seen)
Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (Haven't seen)
Catwoman (Haven't seen)
Constantine (Haven't seen)
Deadpool (Haven't seen)
Green Lantern (Haven't seen)
Hellboy (Haven't seen)
Judge Dredd (Haven't seen)
Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014) (Haven't seen)
V for Vendetta (Haven't seen)

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Haven't seen)

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