10 Things I Hate About Avengers: Endgame

Avengers: Endgame is coming back to theaters.

Marvel is rereleasing it as Avengers Endgame: Encore on September 25, which means seven years later I have another opportunity to watch the Avengers save the universe on a giant screen.

And another opportunity to complain about it.

Because I love Avengers: Endgame.

By the time it came out, I had spent years following the MCU—from opening nights to sleeping outside Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con for some of those Marvel panels. So when Endgame finally arrived, it felt like the payoff to something we'd all been following for more than a decade.

I was invested.

I saw it in theaters. I cheered. I laughed. I got emotional. I watched the portals open and lost it.

Endgame wasn't just a movie.

It was an event.

And now I'm going to watch it again.

Which means I'm also going to get annoyed all over again.

Because loving something doesn't mean pretending it's perfect.

Sometimes loving something means being willing to look it directly in the eye and ask:

Seriously? A rat?

So here’s my poem to Avengers: Endgame and I would like to read it in front of the class.

Lord, here we go.

10. I hate that the Avengers' greatest hero might technically be a rat.

Doctor Strange saw 14,000,605 possible futures.

Millions of possibilities.

And the winning timeline required a rat to walk across the controls of Scott Lang's van and accidentally release Ant-Man from the Quantum Realm.

Think about that.

Thanos defeated the Avengers.

Half of all life disappeared.

Earth's Mightiest Heroes spent five years living with their failure.

Tony Stark figured out time travel.

The Avengers traveled through their own history.

Black Widow sacrificed herself.

Captain America wielded Mjolnir.

Every available superhero showed up for the biggest fight in MCU history.

None of that happens unless Remy's unemployed cousin happens to crawl across the correct button at the correct moment.

That never sat well with me. I didn’t buy it.

9. I hate that Professor Hulk happened without us.

Bruce Banner and Hulk spent years fighting for control.

It was one of the MCU's longest-running character conflicts.

Then Infinity War ends with Hulk refusing to come out, leaving us wondering how Bruce is finally going to resolve this battle between two sides of himself.

Endgame answers:

Oh, yeah.

He figured it out.

Off-screen.

Excuse me?

Bruce Banner essentially accomplished the biggest personal breakthrough of his life between movies.

We missed the entire thing.

We get Professor Hulk sitting in a diner taking selfies like this has always been completely normal.

I like Professor Hulk.

I just would've liked to actually meet him when Bruce did.

8. I hate that Thor's pain became a punchline.

There are parts of Thor's story in Endgame that I genuinely love.

He failed.

He lost his mother.

His father.

His brother.

His home.

Then he had Thanos dead to rights, made one mistake and spent five years believing half the universe disappeared because of him.

That's devastating.

And Chris Hemsworth gets some genuinely vulnerable material to work with.

Then somebody makes another joke about his stomach.

And another.

And another.

The idea that Thor completely falls apart after Infinity War makes sense.

The drinking makes sense.

The isolation makes sense.

Even the physical transformation makes sense.

I just wish the movie trusted the sadness as much as it trusted the fat suit.

7. I hate that time travel makes perfect sense and absolutely no sense.

I understand the rules.

I think.

Changing the past doesn't change your present because your past becomes your future and your former present—

You know what?

Never mind.

It’s not Back to the Future time travel. Okay.

Endgame spends a surprising amount of time explaining why its version of time travel works differently from every time-travel movie we've ever watched.

And yet, seven years later, I’m still arguing about the flaws in their interpretation of time travel. But the whole movie depends on it, so let’s move on.

6. I hate that Natasha never got the goodbye she deserved.

This one isn't really a joke.

Tony Stark gets one of the biggest emotional conclusions in superhero-movie history.

And he should.

But Natasha Romanoff dies on Vormir helping save half the universe and the movie gives us a conversation by a lake before moving on.

No funeral.

No massive gathering.

No extended goodbye.

Natasha was one of the original six Avengers.

She was there when this whole thing started.

And when everything fell apart after the Snap, she was still there trying to hold everyone together.

She deserved more.

5. I hate Hawkeye's haircut.

That's it.

That's the entry.

Five years after the Snap, Clint Barton loses his family, becomes Ronin and travels around the world hunting criminals.

Dark.

Tragic.

Intense.

It just felt like the writers were like, “This dude doesn’t have any superpowers. Let’s just give him a haircut that captures the essence of him grieving and acting out for justice or whatever.”

I know the world lost half its barbers.

There still had to be another option.

4. I hate that Captain Marvel basically had another movie happening somewhere else.

Captain Marvel arrives.

Saves Tony.

Checks in with the Avengers.

Then pretty much says:

"There are a lot of other planets, guys."

And disappears for most of the movie.

And she's right!

The universe is enormous.

Other planets needed help.

But from the perspective of Endgame, it feels like Carol Danvers occasionally wandered in from a completely different, much more expensive movie happening off-screen.

Then she returns during the final battle and flies through Thanos' enormous warship like it was nothing.

Which does raise one small question:

Could you have gotten here like… 20 minutes earlier?

Oh and I see you got a haircut too. You must also be grieving.

3. I hate that "Avengers… Assemble" makes absolutely no logistical sense.

This is one of my favorite moments in the entire MCU.

The portals open.

Everyone returns.

The music swells.

Steve finally says the words we've been waiting years to hear:

"Avengers… Assemble."

Chills.

Every time.

One problem.

There is absolutely no way most of those people heard him.

Captain America basically whispers "assemble" while standing in front of an army stretching across an enormous battlefield.

Some guy 300 yards away just saw Captain America move his mouth and everybody started running.

He probably turned to the person next to him:

"What'd he say?"

"I don't know.”

“I think he said Leeroy Jenkins”

"Are we running?"

"Everybody else is."

“Cool. Let’s go!”

And then they charged an alien army.

Cinema.

I don't care.

I'll cheer again. I get it. It was for us, not for them.

2. I hate that Steve Rogers got his happy ending because it means we lost Captain America.

I know.

Steve earned it.

That's what makes this one hurt.

He spent his entire life doing what was expected of him.

He fought the war.

He went into the ice.

He woke up in a world that had moved on without him.

And then he kept fighting.

Again.

And again.

And again.

So when Steve finally decides to stay in the past and live the life he never got to have with Peggy, it's beautiful.

I hate it.

Because I wasn't ready to say goodbye.

There will be other Captain America stories.

There will be other Avengers.

But there was only one Steve Rogers era of the MCU.

And Endgame closed it.

1. I hate that Tony Stark had to die.

We all knew somebody wasn't making it out.

It still didn't make this easier.

Tony Stark started the MCU as a billionaire building a suit of armor in a cave.

He ended his story staring down the most powerful enemy the Avengers had ever faced.

Thanos believes he's won.

Tony looks at him.

And you know.

"And I… am… Iron Man."

Snap.

Epic.

But that's it.

The character who started this entire ride saves everyone else and doesn't get to come home.

Tony finally had what he'd spent his entire life pretending he didn't need.

A family.

A quiet life.

Morgan.

And then the universe needed Iron Man one more time.

I hate that.

And that's probably why it works.

What I actually hate about Endgame

I gave you ten things I hate about Endgame.

But there's really only one thing about this movie I genuinely hate:

I'll never experience it for the first time again.

And looking back now, I don't think I just miss the movie.

I miss going to the movies like that.

Endgame wasn't only the end of an era for Marvel.

For me, looking back, it feels a little like the end of an era for the movie theater experience itself.

This was 2019.

Before the pandemic.

Before streaming became such a huge part of how we watch new movies.

Before staying home and waiting a few weeks—or sometimes just opening an app—

became a normal alternative to going to the theater.

When Endgame came out, you went.

And everybody else went too.

My first viewing wasn't three hours of politely sitting in silence.

We watched that movie together.

When Cap wielded Mjolnir, we cheered.

When Sam said, "On your left," you could feel the entire theater realize what was about to happen.

Then the portals opened.

People lost it.

And when Steve finally said:

"Avengers… Assemble."

That theater wasn't quiet.

Nobody was worried about maintaining proper movie-theater etiquette.

We had spent more than a decade getting to that moment.

We were cheering with the movie.

That's the part I don't think watching Endgame at home—or even seeing it in theaters again—can fully reproduce. We already know what happens.

I miss that.

The feeling that everybody had to be there because something was happening.

We'll get more Avengers movies.

We're getting Doomsday.

Maybe we'll get bigger crossovers, more surprises, more characters and battles that make the final fight in Endgame look small.

And maybe one of those movies will give us that feeling again.

I hope it does.

But Endgame had something Marvel can't manufacture just by making the next movie bigger.

History.

Those weren't random superheroes coming through those portals.

They were characters we'd followed across 22 movies.

When Cap picked up Mjolnir, that moment had years behind it.

And when Tony made his final sacrifice, it mattered because we’d been with him since the beginning—from “I am Iron Man” and Black Sabbath rolling over the credits, all the way to “And I… am… Iron Man.”

That's why I'm excited to see Endgame in a theater again.

Not because I've forgotten what happens.

Not because I need another way to watch a movie I can already watch whenever I want.

I want to sit in a theater when Cap catches Mjolnir again.

I want to hear an audience react when those portals open.

Maybe everybody cheers.

Maybe nobody does.

Maybe we're all seven years older and considerably more civilized now.

I hope not.

Because for three hours, I'd like a little piece of 2019 back.

Endgame isn't perfect.

The time travel gives me a headache.

Natasha deserved better.

Professor Hulk deserved an actual transformation.

Thor deserved fewer jokes at his expense.

Hawkeye deserved a barber.

And the fate of the known universe should probably not depend on rodent-based button technology.

But when those portals open?

I don't care.

I'm right back in that theater.

I hate that I'll never get that first viewing back.

I hate that these Avengers are gone.

I hate that this era ended.

And I hate that, looking back, it feels like something about going to the movies ended with it too.

But mostly…

I hate the way I don't hate Endgame.

Not even close.

Not even a little bit.

Not even at all.

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