After my eighth viewing of AVENGERS: ENDGAME, I’ve come to
the conclusion that, while not being a perfect film, or even the best of the
MCU films, it’s very likely my favorite MCU film. It has so many moments that
made me feel like a kid again. I felt every moment of the film. I laughed
hysterically at some moments, I cried in tremendous sadness at some moments (like when Cap shaves his Nomad beard),
and cried tears of absolute joy at others. So while these moments might not be the
best moments of ENDGAME, these are my ten favorite moments of the film.
#10. Hulk meeting The Ancient One –
There were some really cool cameos in ENDGAME, such as
Maximiliano Hernandez returning as Jasper Sitwell, Frank Grillo returning as
Brock Rumlow, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Robert Redford as Alexander Pierce, Rene
Russo as Frigga, but with the exception of Natalie Portman as Jane Foster who
only did some very brief voice-over work for this film and all of her on-camera
moments were repurposed footage from THOR: THE DARK WORLD, none was more
surprising than Tilda Swinton as The Ancient One, and we see her defending New
York by dispatching some Chitauri, until she’s met by Bruce Banner, who is
needing the Time Stone from what he thinks will be Stephen Strange, but is
actually being wielded by The Ancient One since Strange wouldn’t become
Sorcerer Supreme for another four years. The scene they have together is great
for a few reasons. Firstly, The Ancient One overpowering Hulk and pushing out
Bruce’s astral form is just awesome. Second, and more important, this scene
while playing as what would ordinarily be some clunky exposition, Swinton and
Ruffalo play off each other really well to set up the rules of what could
happen if they fail, but also how the Avengers seem destined to succeed since
The Ancient One has prophesized Strange to be “the best of us” and that if he
had voluntarily given the Time Stone to Thanos, it must have been for a reason.
And seeing her faith in Strange rewarded despite it being another four years
before they would even meet, she sends Bruce on his way with the Time Stone
with his promise that they will return the stones to their rightful place in
time once the battle is won. It’s a special scene because it’s not just a
really well-performed scene, but a very intricately constructed scene as to
increase the stakes of their mission by showing what could happen to the past
if they don’t survive Thanos. It's also a really playful scene as well and a wonderful callback in a film that has a lot of them.
#9. Tony Stark meets Howard Stark –
Tony Stark’s whole life has been defined by his father in
one way or the other. If it’s not Tony trying to live up to Howard’s
expectations, it’s discovering what kind of man he is out of the shadow of his
father. And Tony doesn’t want to repeat the mistakes of his father as far as
showing love and affection to his own daughter Morgan. The moments that Tony and Howard
share together in the past are indicative of not only how much Tony has grown
in the past 15 years, but it gives him the opportunity to give Howard the
goodbye hug he never got to give him in Howard’s life. You can bet that if Tony
had met Howard back in this time before he was at this point, he would have
been much more dismissive and arrogant, but now that Tony’s grown much more as
a person, as a hero and has also become a father himself, he can actually
dispense some solid life wisdom to his father, which is indicated by the nugget
he gives to Howard, “No amount of money ever bought a second of time”. And the
scene itself is just really fun between Robert Downey Jr. and John Slattery. Watching
Downey, for maybe the first time, being at a complete loss for words and
without a snappy comeback for everything Howard says to him, while Slattery
plays the inverse of that. Howard is the one joking around with some snappy
patter for a man he doesn’t know is his son while Tony just really listens to
his father. And if nothing else, he gets to give him the hug he always
wanted to, and always regretted that he hadn’t, and this time, he doesn't have to use B.A.R.F.
#8. Cap fights Cap –
There are so many terrific moments that run the gamut of
emotional impact within the time-traveling exploits; some of them are sad, like
Thor having to say goodbye to Frigga or Natasha sacrificing herself to allow
Clint to bring back the Soul Stone. Some are bittersweet like Steve seeing
Peggy in the Camp Lehigh S.H.I.E.L.D HQ, and some of them are downright
hilarious like Hulk being forced to take the stairs after the Avengers took
down Loki in the Battle of New York. And then there are those that are just awesome, and that is when
modern-day Steve Rogers confronts his past self from 11 years earlier as he
tries to escape with Loki’s scepter. And of course, younger Steve has seen Loki
shape-shift into him and believes who he’s seeing is indeed Loki rather than his older
self because who the hell would believe in time travel? And in a shocking turn
of events, younger Cap gets the upper hand on older Cap mostly because he
doesn’t want to hurt him…self? Where the older Steve (finally cutting
loose with some cussing as he says to himself when he first sees younger Steve,
“You’ve gotta be shitting me”) sees someone fighting for all the right reasons,
younger Steve sees only an enemy trying to trick his way out of the Avengers’
grasp. Instead of using his brawn, Cap the elder uses his brain to end the
brawl in a callback to CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR when Rumlow distracted him by
talking about Bucky, and does the same to his younger self by telling him that
Bucky is alive. It wins him the fight by putting younger Cap out with the
hypnotic properties of Loki’s scepter, and it also allows him to, well, admire
his own ass. Because who doesn’t? That truly is America’s ass. And in
another truly great comedic moment, younger Cap uses his signature line of, “I
could do this all day”, and the older Cap just responds simply with an exhausted sigh and
says, “Yeah, I know. I know”.
#7. “Hail Hydra” –
I won’t tell a lie: all of my favorite “solo” films of each
MCU phase have been the CAPTAIN AMERICA films. Despite how terrific IRON MAN
was, I still loved THE FIRST AVENGER more. CIVIL WAR is arguably my favorite of
all the MCU films thus far. But we knew that things were going to get more
complex in the MCU when they released the middle film of the Steve Rogers
trilogy, THE WINTER SOLDIER. More spy thriller than action extravaganza
(despite it having a few of the best action scenes of the MCU), it took the
“man out of time” element that came to define Captain America in the comics and
put the man who sees things in terms of relatively simplistic ideas of good and
evil and drops him into a shades-of-grey present where he’s not sure what kind
of life he can lead if he has to abandon those ideas until he’s confronted with
a force of evil that’s taken hold of something he thought was righteous, and a
foe he needs to fight even if he doesn’t want to. And one of those
aforementioned action scenes that everyone loves is the elevator sequence where
Cap defies the orders of Alexander Pierce and his supposed allies surround him
as he descends in an elevator floor-by-floor to take him into custody. Needless
to say, Cap being Cap, he wipes the floor with all those guys, but in ENDGAME,
he finds himself in exactly the same situation when he is surrounded by
literally all the same people in an elevator in Stark Tower after the Hydra-infiltrated
S.H.I.E.L.D strike team takes Loki’s scepter into their possession to deliver to
Dr. Liszt, the man who would assist Baron Von Strucker in creating enhanced
allies to their cause (the only ones that survive, of course, are Wanda and Pietro Maximoff).
Cap needs the scepter in order to get the Mind Stone, and he knows he could
easily fight his way out of this situation again, but instead of fighting, he
again uses his wits, says that he’s going to take the scepter into his custody,
and he stops Sitwell from calling for help and the strike team attacking him by
simply leaning over to Sitwell and whispering those two infamous words: “Hail
Hydra”. So Cap avoids a fight, and gets the scepter with no muss and no fuss.
It’s a great callback to THE WINTER SOLDIER without redoing it, and it also
provides an Easter egg to the recent Nick Spencer run on the comics where an
alternate version of Steve Rogers was a sleeper Hydra agent all along.
#6. Nebula shoots Nebula –
It seems like of all of the characters to survive The
Decimation, the one that has one of the most defined character arcs since her
first appearance has been Karen Gillan’s Nebula. When we first see her, she is
a devoted disciple of her “father” Thanos, willing to deal death to anyone who
opposes him, and most importantly for her, to avenge all the defeats she’s
suffered at the hands of her “sister” Gamora. At the end of the first GUARDIANS
OF THE GALAXY, she cuts off her own hand in order to escape, even with Gamora’s
willingness to help her survive what seems like certain death. When we see her again in VOL. 2, she is still trying
like hell to kill Gamora, and when she crashes her ship, and Gamora ends up
saving her, she finally admits that as much as she may have wanted to kill
Gamora, she was suffering under the thumb of Thanos just as Gamora was, and her
pain and anger have finally brought her to an understanding that she wanted the
love of a true sister. And when we see Nebula at the mercy of Thanos in
INFINITY WAR, we not only find out that Gamora does have great love for her
sister, but that she trusted Nebula enough to give her the secret location of
the Soul Stone. And at the beginning of ENDGAME, Nebula is a fully-formed
person. She understands her anger and has moved past it. She takes a moment to
grieve her loss with Rocket, and even assists Tony in his attempts to get back
to Earth. She joins the ad-hoc Avengers team to eliminate Thanos on the "Garden" planet at the
beginning of the film. And she comes full circle as she sees herself from nine
years prior, still so full of anger and hate, and the younger Nebula denies the
possibility of becoming the future self she sees in front of her. This “weak”
version of Nebula the younger one sees disgusts her and frightens her at the
same time. What could happen to her if she does become this person? What new
torture could Thanos devise for her? So when the younger Nebula disguises
herself as the elder in order to infiltrate the Avengers compound to create an
opening for Thanos to lay waste to them, and at his order, goes to retrieve the
Stones from Clint, she is confronted by Gamora and her future self. Past and
future collide in that one moment, and while the elder says that the younger
can still change, with tears in her eyes, the younger Nebula says, “He won’t
let me” and points her weapon at Gamora, the future Nebula shoots her younger
self through the heart, and she dies with a tear rolling down her cheek. It’s a pointed metaphor for the
annihilation of a past self that was sadistic, destructive and harmful to all
those around them, but it’s also a moment of recognition and sorrow as both the
past and future versions of Nebula see the inevitability of this moment. This
is not a “hero kills villain” moment worthy of cheers; it’s a moment of deep
heartache and the most internal reflection one could possibly take.
#5. Cap wielding Mjolnir –
Steve Rogers has always been worthy. When Abraham Erskine
saw him for the first time at the recruitment office during World War II, he
saw a worthiness in him; an inner strength that belied his weaker frame. This
worthiness was confirmed when he asked Steve if he wanted to kill Nazis, and
Steve replied, “I don’t wanna kill anyone. I don’t like bullies; I don’t care
where they’re from”. Even before he’s given the Super-Soldier Serum, he risks
his own life by collapsing on a grenade he believed to be live, but was just a trick.
He would go on to prove his worthiness throughout his battle against Hydra,
whether in the war or in the present when dealing with the inner machinations
of a Hydra-controlled S.H.I.E.L.D. He became an inspiration, a symbol of human
potential, not in strength of body but strength of conviction. So when the
party scene happens in AGE OF ULTRON, and everyone is invited to attempt to lift
Mjolnir, Cap is the only one able to slightly jostle it. This further indicated
that he was likely worthy. His fight in CIVIL WAR to not only stand by his
convictions but to also help Bucky find redemption proved his worthiness. His
ability to be the only human to truly stand against Thanos with just raw determination in that epic slo-mo moment near the end of INFINITY WAR, even while he was
unable to stop him, was Steve as a force of pure will. But when the fight to
return literally countless lives to the universe is nearing its apex, and
Thanos is about to drive Stormbreaker through Thor’s chest, Mjolnir finds
itself in the hands of Steve Rogers. This is not only just an Easter egg for
something that’s happened in the comics a few times, but Steve Rogers has
always been worthy. Thor knew it, and although he’d never admit it, Steve
probably knew it too.
#4. “It’s like I was made for this” –
The road that Bruce Banner has taken in the Marvel Cinematic
Universe has been a rocky one to say the least. First, it was Edward Norton who
was picked to lead the character of Banner into the MCU, but as an actor who
was notorious for being extremely difficult to work with and his insistence on
a great deal of creative control that wasn’t necessarily warranted, at least he
did his part in bringing not only Bruce Banner but also General Thaddeus
“Thunderbolt” Ross into the MCU via the personage of the great William Hurt. And
not to get too technical, but the rights to The Hulk were still owned by
Universal, so that caused some issues as well. And depending upon who you
believe, whether it’s Norton or MCU mastermind Kevin Feige, the reasons for
Norton not reprising his role vary (personally, I’m team Feige on this because
Norton is notoriously kind of a dick), the newest selection for Bruce Banner
was Mark Ruffalo, who began his tenure with the character in 2012’s Joss
Whedon-helmed THE AVENGERS, and since then, he’s appeared in a cameo in IRON
MAN 3, but also in a full co-star capacity in AGE OF ULTRON, THOR: RAGNAROK,
and INFINITY WAR and ENDGAME. The evolution of the character has been as
fascinating as Ruffalo’s portrayal as a man initially in search of a way to
eradicate his monstrous alter-ego but eventually accepted and integrated the
monster inside with the smarter and more sensitive human exterior to create
what people will refer to as Professor Hulk; it’s Banner’s personality with the
brute strength of Hulk. His distaste at what he was is demonstrated perfectly
and hilariously as he sees his past 2012 self “gratuitously” destroying cars
and aliens as he, Tony, Steve and Scott Lang travel back to when the newly-formed
Avengers could get their hands on both the Time and Space stones. But what was
the reason that Banner was brought into The Avenger Initiative in the first
place? Well, if you asked Nick Fury back then, it was to help track Loki since
the Tesseract (aka the Space Stone) emitted low-level Gamma radiation, and who
knows Gamma radiation better than Bruce Banner? It then stands to reason that,
when The Avengers are trying to determine who the best person to wield the
so-called Nano Gauntlet would be, Bruce says that he’ll do it since all of the
stones emit some form of Gamma radiation that would be fatal to any human
being, and perhaps even fatal to someone like Thor, Bruce comes full circle
with his story within the MCU and his cosmic purpose is revealed as he simply
states, “It’s like I was made for this”.
#3. Steve and Peggy’s dance –
The final minutes of the film are dedicated to a character
that writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely as well as directors Joe
and Anthony Russo obviously have great affection for, and that’s Steve Rogers.
The Russos weren’t around for Cap’s first film adventure in the MCU, as THE
FIRST AVENGER was directed by Joe Johnston, but Markus and McFeely were as they
wrote the script for that film, as well as the scripts for Cap’s further outings
and INFINITY WAR and ENDGAME. But Markus and Mcfeely also have a great affinity
for the character of Peggy Carter as well. After THE FIRST AVENGER and THE
WINTER SOLDIER, they spearheaded the effort to bring Peggy back to the small
screen as they were the creators of the AGENT CARTER show on ABC. Sadly it only
lasted two abbreviated seasons, but it gave us more Hayley Atwell, more Dominic Cooper as
the young Howard Stark, and introduced James D’Arcy as Stark’s butler Jarvis, the
model for Tony’s helpful virtual assistant, and who made a brief cameo in ENDGAME.
Some might argue that Peggy was done dirty by this quartet as having Steve have
a brief romance with her niece Sharon in CIVIL WAR after Peggy’s passing, but
to be fair, that was as much a part of Cap’s comic canon as anything else. It
seemed like a bit of a head-scratcher that Sharon disappeared entirely from the
MCU after helping Cap, Bucky and Sam in CIVIL WAR (after a kiss with Steve),
but as the events of ENDGAME took shape, it was easy to see why they left
Sharon out.
If Vegas were taking bets on which character in ENDGAME
would meet their final fate, I’m sure that the odds-on favorite would have been
Steve Rogers; he’s the guy who had been set up as the one with nothing to lose,
much to atone for and the one who would always jump on the grenade. But it didn’t
roll that way because as it turns out, the sacrifices for the world would be
made by Natasha and Tony, two people that helped define him and would be
defined by him over the course of the previous 11 years. Their deaths greatly
affected him because, despite being in mildly to overtly adversarial moments
with them over those years, he always cared about them and they ended up being two
of his closest friends and after their demise, he took the mission to restore
the Infinity Stones to the points in time they were taken from, but decided
that he would take a detour instead. So when he was supposed to return, he didn’t
as expected, but he still did. Instead of just returning to continue his
mission with the rest of the Avengers, he returned as an old man to pass the shield
to another good man, Sam Wilson, and tells him that he decided to try and live
the simple life that Tony had told him about and when they shake hands, you see
a wedding ring on Steve’s finger. Sam asks Steve if he’ll tell him about her,
to which Steve simply replies with a sly smile, “No, I don’t think I will”. We
are then transported back to the late 1940’s, post World War II to an idyllic
little home on a perfect day. Inside the house, Steve is dancing cheek to cheek
with none other than Peggy. Peggy was always Steve’s north star; the one that
he would return to if he could. With the Stones, he could and did.
I know that this plot point has been the source of a great
deal of contention amongst fans of the film and fans of the character with
thinkpieces dedicated to the idea that this ending effectively destroyed who
Captain America is. If he’s living a quiet life with Peggy, how do all the horrible
things happen to the world that he could have stopped, such as the rise of
Hydra within S.H.I.E.L.D, or Loki’s invasion of New York or Bucky from becoming
a brainwashed Hydra agent that killed Tony’s parents? How could he be so
selfish? Now none of these theories play into the idea that what went on with Steve
and Peggy was either A: a self-contained timeline in an alternate universe that
was set up in the Hulk/Ancient One scene, or B: that if he did try to prevent
any of these things, it would possibly result in other incredibly catastrophic
events? If Cap tries to prevent any of those things, it likely undoes Dr.
Strange’s one outcome where Thanos is defeated. Also, the rules of time travel
set up within this film allow future selves to interact with past selves, so
who’s to say that the BACK TO THE FUTURE/TERMINATOR-esque time travel rules
that would have potentially allowed him to prevent any of these things would
have been possible since those rules were effectively thrown out the window? The
things that were changed becomes the future, and what used to be your future
became your past. So… let the guy have the happy ending he clearly deserved.
#2. “I am Iron Man” –
For 11 years, Marvel Studios has been releasing films that
range from decent to absolutely phenomenal and world-changing. And at the end
of their first release, IRON MAN, a simple declaration was made by Tony Stark
to the world at large: “I am Iron
Man”. He was told to keep it a secret, but at the end of the day, this is Tony
Stark’s world and we’re all just living in it. Robert Downey Jr. was the
catalyst of a formula that superhero films have been trying to do for ages:
create an inter-connected universe of heroes and villains that would create a
film-going experience that would look and feel like a comic book. Other films
had certainly achieved the look, but rarely ever the feel. But it was Downey
who was able to carry the strength of this 22-film franchise on his back for
the last decade. So it was only natural, in watching Tony’s journey from
narcissistic genius billionaire playboy philanthropist to one of the saviors of
the universal Decimation at the hand of Thanos and all the trials and tragedies
that had come to haunt him and terrify him, that he would be the one not
necessarily to outfight Thanos but rather to outthink him, even knowing that it
would mean his death. And with wielding the Infinity Stones, fully aware that
this will cause his death, he replies to Thanos’s boast of “I am inevitable” by
simply repeating those four words that helped to spawn the most successful film
franchise of all time: “I am Iron Man”. This is the moment we all want to stand
up and cheer, but the side-effect of this moment is made all too clear to us
even when it happens. We hold out hope that this won’t be the end of Tony
Stark, but it is, making it the most bittersweet moment of the MCU.
#1. The Assembly –
There are two words that are as iconic as or perhaps more
than literally any other catchphrase in the entire history of superhero comic
books. The initial marketing for 2012’s THE AVENGERS film had the tag line,
“Some Assembly Required”. In AGE OF ULTRON, we had a moment of Captain America
and Black Widow at the end as they’re meeting their new team lineup and Cap
begins the call to action, but the screen cuts to black and begins the end
credits just as he’s about to say it. But by the end of CIVIL WAR, the team
isn’t just fractured; it’s completely gone. Thor and Hulk are off in space
doing their own thing, and Cap, Iron Man, Vision, War Machine, Hawkeye, Falcon,
Black Widow, and Scarlet Witch have split into their own factions or end up in
prison. The only people left at the Avengers compound at the end of CIVIL WAR
are Tony, Rhodey and Vision, but even Vision sneaks off to have a romance with
Wanda. So while INFINITY WAR also serves as the first part of the “Infinity
Gauntlet” story arc, it also has similarities to the early 2000’s “Avengers:
Disassembled” arc within the comics which showed The Avengers broken seemingly
beyond repair as we see many characters meet what appears to be their final fate
thanks to the split that occurred during CIVIL WAR. The Avengers failed in
INFINITY WAR not just because Thanos was powerful, but because they weren’t
working as a unit. In that same film, in the scene when Steve returns to the
Avengers compound only to be confronted by Secretary Ross, he tells Ross,
“Earth just lost her best defender” when Tony hitches a ride into deep space on
the invading ship. In ENDGAME when Tony returns from being marooned in space
near-death, he says, “I couldn’t stop him”, to which Steve replies, “Neither
could I”. Earth’s Mightiest Heroes are fractured at the outset, and at the end
of INFINITY WAR, they’re shattered when The Decimation occurs and then utterly
destroyed when they initially confront Thanos in ENDGAME to find that the
Infinity Stones have been destroyed and the Decimation cannot be undone. The
team, when reassembled to pull off the “time heist”, is when they’re at their
best, and they all know it. The serious issues of the past five years since The
Decimation seem to be barely footnotes to them as they look to repair the
devastation the universe has fallen victim to. So when Thanos arrives to now
destroy and recreate the entire universe, and Cap is standing there alone
against Thanos’ hordes and the Black Order with a shattered shield, a
devastated compound and many of his teammates down for the count, he remains
defiant despite the insurmountable odds. However, as he stands there, the voice
of Sam Wilson suddenly comes over his earpiece. Garbled at first, then clear,
he stands there in disbelief, and then Sam finally says, “On your left” as one
of Dr. Strange’s portals opens and out comes T’Challa, Okoye, and Shuri,
followed by dozens and dozens of other portals that reveal the rest of the
heroes that succumbed to The Decimation, and they’ve brought backup. Strange is
there with Wong and other students of the Mystic Arts, Ravagers arrive, and
Wakandan soldiers and warships arrive. The odds are now even at last. And at
the one time it truly mattered; when all the heroes of the Earth are reunited
and are ready and willing to fight the most powerful foes they’ve ever
encountered and the greatest threat to existence they’ve ever seen, the heroes
are on the front line of the most fearsome army the universe has ever seen,
Captain America finally utters the immortal battle cry: “Avengers… assemble”. It’s
a moment of such joy and deep meaning for everyone there, and most importantly,
it’s the first time that it really would have felt earned to hear on screen.
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