In 2019, the marketing for Avengers: Endgame was so secretive that most people sitting in the theater didn’t know it was a time travel movie. We had no clue how our heroes were going to save half of existence, especially when Thanos destroyed the stones and died minutes into the movie. I remember watching it for the first time, realizing they were about to go full Back to the Future Part II, and completely losing my shit.
Seven years later, everyone sitting in the theater this weekend for Avengers Endgame: Encore knows it’s a time travel movie. They know every line, every moment, and many already know all the teases Marvel included for its next film, Avengers: Doomsday (those leaked about 24 hours before the film actually hit theaters). And while those teases, of which there are four, will be the main thing drawing people into the theater, what they’ll leave with is something more personal than that. They’ll leave with the memories of a night in the summer of 2019 when Marvel Studios was at the peak of its powers, and we all smiled, cried, and cheered our hearts out as one.
That was a great feeling. One that has been all too rare in the seven years since. Since the original release of Endgame, Marvel Studios has famously struggled to gain the momentum it built up in the years previous. It’s had a few slam dunks (WandaVision, Loki, the Spider-Man movies), a few duds (Thor: Love and Thunder, Captain America: Brave New World), and a lot of in-between. For the most part, of the dozens of projects released since Endgame, most have been fine. Solid. Enjoyable. Just nowhere near what came before.
With Avengers Endgame: Encore, Marvel is hoping to remind people of its fastball. It’s saying, “This is what we can do and what we’re going to do again,” and it begins even before the movie itself. I saw Endgame Encore at an AMC, and after the usual 20 minutes of trailers (which included not just Avengers: Doomsday, but its big December 18 competition, Dune: Part Three), we first got a special, new Avengers: Doomsday “silence your phones” spot with several cast members in it. There’s then an intro from Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. which goes right into the movie. From there, the movie plays as it did in 2019 until the very last seconds. (More on that in another article.)
What struck me most about watching Endgame again was that not only is there time travel on screen, it felt like there was time travel in the theater. I could remember exactly how I felt in 2019 when I first saw the movie. I was still freaking out at the story. I was emotional at all the right moments. Cheering when it was warranted. And everyone else in my theater was too. The sniffles were audible during Tony Stark’s funeral, and it made me even more emotional than I already was.
Everyone was loving being on this ride again. Remembering what Marvel movies can do that other movies can’t. It also helps that a lot of what’s on screen hits a little differently in retrospect. All of Peter Parker’s moments, for example, feel even more exciting knowing exactly what the character will endure in the future (and how his movies would become even bigger than this). Wanda’s full embrace of her powers now acts to foreshadow what’s to come for her, which is a lot. Natasha’s sacrifice hurts even more after learning more about her and her family in Black Widow. And, of course, seeing Chadwick Boseman return as T’Challa feels even more impactful now knowing he’d be gone just a few months later.
There are moments like that all throughout, and it really makes what is already a wonderful movie even better. And yet, there are also moments and characters that don’t land as impactfully; Carol Danvers, for example, is such a huge presence in this movie but has never quite gotten the chance to shine in the years since. The same goes for Sam Wilson. Even though he becomes Captain America, the franchise lost its spark somewhere along the way. And you really do feel bad for characters like Ant-Man and Thor, who are so good here, and rightfully got follow-up movies, but those come nowhere near what you feel for them in this movie.
Basically, if you want to go see Avengers Endgame: Encore just for the Doomsday teases, do that. You’ll enjoy them. But if you also watch the movie with new eyes, you’ll have an even better experience. It’s a wonderful movie that sets the bar very, very high for whatever Marvel has in store this year and next.
Avengers Endgame: Encore is now in theaters.
Want more io9 news? Check out the best movies and TV shows to stream this month and all the upcoming sci-fi, fantasy, and horror books that should be on your radar.
Read the full article here
