The Marvel Cinematic Universe has its share of great movies and many fans think that the best is Avengers: Endgame. After Avengers: Infinity War, the Internet was alive with Endgame fan theories like nobody's business and there are many out there who felt the movie delivered perfectly. However, while there's no doubt the movie was successful and found an audience, does it really deserve the praise?
The MCU makes its share of mistakes and some of those are definitely on display in Endgame. When it comes right down to it, there's a lot about the movie that works but also a lot about it that is pretty overrated.
10 Why It's Overrated: Captain America's Ending Doesn't Really Make Any Sense For The Character
The end of Endgame saw Cap going back in time to return the Infinity Stones to their places in time and returning as an old man, having spent a lifetime with Peggy Carter. This pretty much makes no sense for the character - Cap giving up his fight is out of character. What makes it worse is that there was a way around it - he could have kept the Time Stone, spend a life with her, then de-age himself and return it.
Beyond that, there are plenty of other options for Cap's retirement if that was something that had to happen. The whole scene felt weirdly shoehorned in.
9 Why It Deserves The Praise: Iron Man's Ending Is Perfect
Conversely, Iron Man's ending is a fitting end to the MCU's most popular character. Tony Stark had gone through a lot of changes as the movies progressed and dying as the Earth's ultimate hero was a fitting end for him. Everything about the scene was perfect and it was a wonderful capstone to Robert Downey Jr.'s time as Iron Man.
Even fans who didn't completely love RDJ's Iron Man (all three of them) found the ending perfect. There was pretty much no other way to end the movie and it is one of the MCU's best moments.
8 Why It's Overrated: Iron Man Figuring Out Time Travel Is A Bridge Too Far
The MCU has made a habit of making Iron Man's intelligence the ultimate deus ex machina. He's as smart as any scene in any of the movies demands him to be and while that's fine, it's definitely a little much. So, for example, when he's the one who figures out time travel, something completely unrelated to his area of expertise, it stretches credulity.
Iron Man is an engineer and weapons designer yet he somehow now has the advanced quantum physics knowledge to perfect time travel? It makes zero sense.
7 Why It Deserves The Praise: Thanos Continues To Be Great
Thanos doesn't play as big a role in Endgame as he did in Infinity War, but that doesn't mean he isn't awesome. While Infinity War told fans about who Thanos was, Endgame showed just how dangerous he could be without any of the Infinity Stones, and his final battle against the Avengers is one of the best superhero fights ever.
The movie didn't need to get into him as deeply as IW did, so it uses him as the ultimate villain he had been built into for a decade and it's extremely effective. While he isn't as great as he is in the comics or the previous movie, he's still a fantastic villain.
6 Why It's Overrated: The Time Travel Plot Feels Like Filler
One of the biggest problems with Endgame is the way it kills Thanos and gets rid of the Infinity Gauntlet in the opening hour of the movie. This forces the time travel plot, which honestly is not a plot anyone would have predicted for the movie. It's okay but it goes on forever and, to be frank, feels like filler.
While it was sort of an interesting place to go with the movie, it also feels like a strange direction to take the whole thing in and a bit of a cop-out on the writer's part. It also leads to the death of Black Widow, which everyone can agree was a huge mistake.
5 Why It Deserves The Praise: Cap's Avengers Assemble Moment Is Perfect
Something that comic fans had been waiting for since the formation of the Avengers was Cap yelling out his classic battle cry, "Avengers assemble!" It's one of those comic moments that everyone wanted from the MCU but never got until Endgame. However, the wait was well worth it.
Happening just as the Blip brought back all of the dead heroes and Wakandan forces, Cap's utterance of his trademark phrase was a massive moment in the movie that was perfectly done, one that caused audiences around the world to erupt. It was a long wait but it paid off beautifully. There are lots of scenes the movie could have had but this one was perfect.
4 Why It's Overrated: It Never Really Feels Like An Ensemble Movie
One of the things that Avengers: Infinity War did so well is that it felt like an ensemble piece - there were enough story beats to go around and nearly everyone had something to do. Endgame had way less characters to deal with and yet it still mostly felt more like an Iron Man and friends movie than a movie about a bunch of characters.
Iron Man motivates everyone to go after Thanos, getting him to join up five years later is a huge plot point, meeting his dad is a massive part of the time travel plot, and the ending is all about him. While other characters play a role in the movie, Iron Man is the focus of everything, which is weird for a movie that is about the end of an MCU era.
3 Why It Deserves The Praise: The Final Battle Scene Is One Of The Best Superhero Fight Ever
Endgame's final battle delivers amazingly. It has the massive scope this kind of battle needs and it's full of tension. The stakes keep rising and it has some amazing moments - Cap using Mjolnir, the aforementioned "Avengers Assemble", Captain Marvel demolishing Thanos's ship, and so much more.
The final battle is very long and yet it never drags or feels gratuitous. It just keeps building and building, delivering more exciting moments, and exceeding expectations. There are so many ways it could have failed and yet it hurdled over all of those to deliver a breathtaking battle twenty-two films in the making.
2 Why It's Overrated: It Gets A Pass Because It's The End Of An Era
Endgame makes a lot of mistakes and some of them are worse than others. However, most fans are more than willing to excuse those mistakes because of what the movie represents. Endgame is the end of the MCU as fans knew it and, as such, a lot of people give it a pass because it's the last time they'll ever see their heroes together again.
This automatic nostalgia armored the movie from just about any criticisms leveled at it upon release and even now, two years later, bringing up any of the movie's deficiencies stirs up a bunch of rabid MCU fans ready to attack.
1 Why It Deserves The Praise: It Hits All The Right Emotional Beats
From the beginning of the movie, when it showed the results of the Snap on Hawkeye's family, Endgame promised to be an emotional movie and it delivered over and over again across its run time. This is a major accomplishment and really sells just how important the story is. By the end of the movie, fans had gone on an emotional roller coaster unlike any the MCU had taken them on before.
That is the movie's biggest triumph; if it had failed in any way in this regard, the movie would have been disappointing no matter how great the action was. The fact it didn't is one of the reasons it's so beloved by MCU fans.