AN old Greek dude once said, “All I know, is that I know nothing”. You should keep this in mind as you buy your tickets for Avengers: Endgame. I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that if you’ve managed to dodge around the social media spoiler minefield, you have no idea what is going to happen in this movie. Not one clue. If you thought Infinity War was crazy, you have something else coming. No amount of trailer analysis could prepare you for the sheer scale of this movie, which is truly the most ambitious crossover event in history.
For years people have been predicting a ‘superhero fatigue’, yet if you have even the tiniest bit of confidence in the genre, Endgame will convince you that this is not the case. If anything, Marvel’s most recent films have been their best, and a diverse selection of directors has pushed the boundaries of the superhero genre. Black Panther and Captain Marvel tackled criticisms of a lack of diversity and Guardians and Thor: Ragnarok brought talented, innovative directing styles to the MCU scene. By looking at their rivals, we can see how Marvel is pulling ahead of the game in their field. Sony’s Venom was a movie that had its heels firmly planted in the early 2000s.
For a mainstream audience, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has something for everyone, and this has been essential to its worldwide success. In the simplest words possible, if you’re finding it difficult to get invested in a Marvel movie, just skip to the next one, which will hopefully be more to your liking. Some more cynical viewers would see this as a negative, looking on in disgust as the flocks of sheeple march their way obediently back in to the cinema for the next cookie-cutter Marvel movie, but I beg to disagree. Endgame is pretty far from formulaic, and even the snidest critic could not begin to expect the rollercoaster that the movie takes.
Another effort by Marvel to try and keep their formula from becoming tired is to slowly introduce new characters to the roster. Memorably, Captain America addressed Scarlet Witch, Falcon, Vision and War Machine at the end of Age of Ultron in a not-so-subtle hint that these characters would be becoming a more prominent part of the franchise. So in this sense, I agree, I probably would be experiencing ‘superhero fatigue’ if I was watching Iron Man 8, but with four original character-centric movies entering the MCU in just the past three years and movies such as Black Widow and a possible X-Men integration possibly on the horizon, I’m not too worried about running the well dry with so many interesting, emotionally complex characters being consistently introduced.
“But where do we go from here?”, the question has to be asked, and it is not an easy one to answer. As optimistic as I am for the superhero genre, no trend lasts forever and eventually the Marvel Cinematic Universe will have to draw to a close. But who knows, maybe Phase 4 will simply start again from the beginning? The Russo Brothers will find a new epic Marvel villain to lurk in the background of every MCU movie until 2030, when we see every box office record re-broken by Avengers: Hulk’s Bar Mitzvah.
Samuel Thomson, Screen Editor
