Avengers Endgame: Just Wow…

Okay guys, it’s officially Saturday and I’m doing my best to bust this out before tomorrow hits and everyone within Branded’s target demo is spending their day nursing pedialyte, shamelessly pounding one off to that Instagram chick you went to college with, and wasting away in front of playoff hockey/basketball.

Anyway, since I’m Branded’s self asserted, resident movie critic, I decided to pounce on the premiere of that Avengers movie. Now, for the record, I see a TON of movies at my local theater; however, I always go alone (if you don’t, you’re either a self-conscious loser or someone who has friends) and every theater I enter is nearly empty. It’s kind of sad, actually. Long gone are the days where the movies is a hot destination for communal affairs. Now it’s just a ghost town because millennial cucks can’t bother to venture off their couch anymore unless there’s a prospect of a 100+ like Instagram post opportunity on the table.

That said, last night was an outlier. For those keeping score at home, Endgame is a wagon that’s poised to break Avatar’s box office revenue record—a feat that, in this climate, is utterly remarkable—and with good reason. Since 2008’s Iron Man, Marvel has been developing a 22-film story arc that culminated in what I watched yesterday and, damn, did it deliver…

SPOILER ALERT: THERE ARE ZERO SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW

I hate to do this, but I feel it’s necessary: Whenever I review these super hero movies, I always feel the need to clarify that I’m not much of a “Marvel movie” guy. To be honest, up until Infinity War, the only MCU movies I had seen was Iron Man, The Guardians films, Thor: Ragnarok, Captain America: Civil War, and parts of Black Panther—all of which were really good and considered amongst the best that Marvel had to offer. When I finally saw Infinity War, I was floored…

What the Russo brothers were able to do was unprecedented. There have been hundreds of tentpole movie franchises—Rocky, Harry Potter, Rambo, James Bond, etc.—but no anthology of films have built up to a finale in the way the MCU did. I mean, we’re talking TWENTY-TWO MOVIES here, and the Russo brothers managed to reference every one of them in a seamless, 2.5 hour spectacle. In other words, to do that once is unprecedented; to do that AGAIN is downright unimaginable…

But guess what, boys… it happened

As I mentioned, I won’t be going much into the plot so I’ll just stick to the ambience because, well, this was HANDS DOWN the best experience I’ve ever had in a movie theater. Given the buzz over the past couple years surrounding this film, the parking lot of the cinema was juiced and the actual theater followed suit. People were wearing Marvel gear left and right and the passion/elation was palpable. Strictly speaking, it was the closest to a “Game 7” environment you’ll ever get. People were literally standing and roaring at certain parts of the movie and I couldn’t blame them.

To clarify, I think Marvel really hit their stride when they decided to divert from the run-of-the-mill, gun-wielding, two-dimensional protagonist that we’ve become used to.

When Iron Man first premiered, it was first time they introduced us to a character with substantial depth. Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark was a billionaire playboy with a brain Einstein would’ve licked his chops at. In other words, he had everything; however, fans gravitated towards him because, well, he was also the most human/flawed individual throughout the MCU. He was the perfect tentpole protagonist, and that depth reverberated throughout the films that followed. That said, although the emotional standard Marvel set was incredible for a 2-hour film, it made the Russo borthers’ job SOOO much more difficult. They were given the task of closing the character arc of 22+ individual characters in a 3-hour span.

But guess what, boys… it happened

Unbelievably, there is very little to be unsatisfied with in regard to how things turned out. People have echoed this sentiment throughout the Internet over the last couple days and I have to agree: they ended it perfectly.

Disclaimer: I’m just incoherently rambling right now…

I often judge action movies like this based on how many “Let’s fucking go0o0o0o” moments there are and Endgame rattled that quota like a cheap speed bag. Do you remember that moment in Infinity War when Thor touched back down during the battle in Wakanda? Yeah, there were like 20 of those moments, and all of them sent the audience into a frenzy.

The last thing I’ll say is this: The reason we love movies is because they make us “feel.” I mentioned earlier that it was the best experience I’ve ever had in a theater and I can’t stress that enough. During the pivotal scene, I had one of those “What do I do with my hands?” moments. It was an absolute RUSH of emotion. Just a decade’s worth of sweat poured into 30-second pan shot. I genuinely had no idea whether to laugh, cry, erupt in cheer, or do all three. I didn’t think achieving such a sensation through cinema was possible.

But guess what, boys… it happened.

What an achievement. What a triumph. Cue the curtain drop…

Final Score: 9.6 out of 10 Boats

– Joey Boats (@joey_boats)

2019-2020 Scores

Fighting With My Family: 9.0
Captain Marvel: 6.4
How To Train Your Dragon 3: 8.8
US: 8.4
Dumbo: 4.3
Shazam!: 8.3