I saw it this weekend. I will say that it’s an enjoyable and entertaining movie.
But it’s something of a logical mess. I’m not spoiling much by saying that time travel features in the story. Early in the movie, there’s discussion about how lame movie treatments of time travel typically are. (Back to the Future and Hot Tub Time Machine get mentioned.) I think this was included as a wink to irony, because the movie proceeds to create paradoxes all over the place. Some are cleaned up, because doing so is important to the plot, but many others are ignored, because it would be inconvenient to the plot.
Those aren’t the only logical inconsistencies. We’re not talking about scientific implausibilities, which you have to just accept in these kinds of movies, but places where the movie makes a statement, and then later outright contradicts itself. In the experience of the movie, it ends up working, because everything is happening fast, loud, and with feeling and panache. It’s only afterward, as you dwell on what happened, that the inconsistencies become glaring.
I don’t doubt that hard core fans will be able to come up with explanations for all those inconsistencies. I used to do that myself when I was a boy reading the actual comics that these movies are based on. Still, it’d be nice if so many of them weren’t required.
That said, it’s a Marvel movie. You have to be willing to suspend your disbelief if you’re going to enjoy it. And I did leave the theater satisfied. If you’ve followed the saga to this point, you’ll definitely want to watch it. (Although this is definitely not the movie to introduce yourself to the Marvel universe.) I thought most of the character resolutions were pretty satisfying.
Highly recommended for popcorn entertainment.
SelfAwarePatterns 
A comic book movie was a logic mess? You mean more than usual? 🙂
I will give Marvel credit for making them fairly watchable. It’s a trick I wish DC would learn. (I did think “killing” off all those characters was silly (we all know better; find a smarter plot device), especially given trailers were already out showing some of the “dead” characters in action.)
There are some pretty decent time-travel movies. I liked Looper, and Primer (which needs a primer to understand) is the canonical “great time-travel movie.”
There’s a little known one, FAQ About Time Travel that’s a hoot and well worth watching.
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And, BTW, Travelers on Netflix has an interesting take on time-travel. Minds can be sent back to inhabit bodies if you know exactly where the body is. (So it only began with GPS enabled phones and social media so they could locate people.) As a further twist, they can only send someone back later than the most recent one. Each mind sent closes the past to the moment it was sent.
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Thanks for the recommendations! Time travel is really hard to do well, and it inevitably involves making assumptions about the consequences of certain actions. Multiple people have pointed out to me that I might have missed a crucial explanation in the movie on how its time travel is supposed to work. (I did go the bathroom at one point.) Still, even with that, I think the movie has issues.
More than the typical comic book movie? If it does, it’s only because of all the threads it throws up in the air, which it does handle with remarkable skill from a storytelling perspective.
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Yeah, and, it’s hard to fault a comic book movie for time travel. It’s been part of the mix at least since Superman discovered he couldn’t change the past no matter what he tried.
Comic book movies are sheer fantasy, anyway (like Star Wars), and ultimately for the child in all of us. Holding them hard to real life standards is kinda missing the point. 🙂
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I don’t think there are any paradoxes. They’re just creating branch timelines every time they jump back and change something, and when they jump back to the “present” they’re returning to their original timeline. The Ancient One said something like that, about how their timeline “won’t have a Time Stone” or what have you.
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I have to admit that I missed a lot of the conversation with The Ancient One due to the one bathroom I made during the movie. (3 hours (3.5 with trailers) is a long time to hold it.) Still, the final scene (no spoilers) seemed to contradict that understanding.
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I think that was [spoiler] just returning to the original timeline for [spoiler task].
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Perhaps. A lot of people seem to be suggesting that. And maybe there’s some fleeting clue about it in the scene I missed. But if so, the movie seems to deliberately obscure it.
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Did they have one of those ones where some character(s) are screwed, then one of them appears from the future and rescues them (then disappears), then latter they go rescue themselves? Those really annoy me, but they appear to tickle the fancy of writers who care about the emotional responce more than it actually making any sense.
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They didn’t really have those particular scenarios. It’s hard for me to get into details without going into spoilers.
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Well that’s good
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Once they tell you about the Infinity Stones, and you say, “Hmmm, do go on…”, you have ceded your right to further complaints.
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Fair point, but I always reserve the right to complain 🙂
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Well, that is in the constitution, or at least the American DNA.
I give them credit for pursuing the theme of personal identity through a ridiculous number of movies and trying to wrap it up at the end, without resorting to (many) pat answers.
It makes the rest forgivable.
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Nice review! It would mean a lot if you checked out my review as well:
https://letstalkcinema.movie.blog/2019/04/29/avengers-endgame-movie-review/
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I felt the same way. In the end, I was very confused about how time travel is supposed to work in this story universe. The scene with the Ancient One sort of helped, but other parts of the movie seemed to contradict it. I don’t know. Maybe if I see the movie again, it’ll make more sense to me.
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I actually missed a lot of the Ancient One scene due to my one bathroom break. Lots of people told me that fixes it all. Although the final scene seems like it requires extra explanation (which of course fans are always willing to do) to avoid being a contradiction.
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Maybe if I see the movie again, it’ll make more sense. I didn’t think that one scene fixed it all. I think it helped, but I still felt kind of confused.
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