Avengers: Endgame is a money game! (and I still love it).

 Avengers: Endgame is a money game!

I love the Marvel universe! Every action packed, humor infused, save the world, love story! They are so good that you are disappointed if the Rotten Tomatoes rating of a Marvel flick is less than 90%. How can EVERY SINGLE FILM be so good?  Don't even get me started on JJ Abrams and his Disney, Star Wars reboot. I was mad at him for years but the films were still good. That's why I also love to hate on Disney. I think it's more of a jealousy thing than anything. How can one company own EVERYTHING in house? Disney's list of holdings makes it easy to understand that it's one of the largest companies in the world. It is also one of seven media companies that control every piece of information that comes in or out of my brain! It also brings in over 82 billion dollars a year. PLEASE let that sink in for a second...82 BILLION a year!  That's almost a trillion dollars profit in a decade. I also push back on the company that claims to corner the market on Family Values, when its original innovator, Walt himself, had less than altruistic beliefs. Disney wanted to make good films for SOME people, but not others. Not very family oriented if you ask me. 

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Disney

Okay, okay! So this post is about Avengers: Endgame. But as a cinephile, I would be remiss if I didn't explore my true feelings about the blockbuster, every time I review one of these masterpiece Disney action films. They do it so well!!  Most Disney releases are proclaimed a "Classic" in a couple of years. But part of the reason is that Disney has so much money, it's near impossible for a film to fail. The budget for Avengers: Endgame was around 400 million dollars. It's crazy that after saying 82 billion, that doesn't sound like much but goodness gracious, it is! The average price of a blockbuster today is around 50 million. Every Marvel universe film at least quadruples that number. I can't blame them for doing it! Avengers: Endgame has made almost 3 Billion dollars. Okay, let that one soak in. ONE FILM MADE ALMOST 3 Billion dollars!!!

So yes, I love the action packed, hugely enjoyable, blow up the world and save it romp that is the Avengers franchise. And I cried at the end of Endgame. Yep, I said it. As much as I know that it's wrong, some strange little person in me is in love with Tony Stark. I KNOW HE'S NOT REAL! lol! Somehow Disney and RDJ made me connect to him on a personal, professional, and save the world level. From the first 2008 Iron Man, he became my pretend boyfriend. I told my children he was their real father!

Spoiler ending of Endgame. Not sure how it could be spoiled for anyone unless you are NOT one of the hundreds of millions of people that have seen this film! 

My soul was crushed at the End of Endgame and that is exactly why I know it was a brilliant franchise. As with most fictional films, these characters are not real, but we love them like they are. That is what Disney does so well too. Vertical integration: The building of every aspect of a company within and outside of it without any outside resources needed. Disney has mastered this and it is why the films are so hugely successful and also why they make so much damn money. There is no separation of ideas when in housing all aspects of a film project. It becomes a seamless congruence of efforts and ideas of what the film should be. It's brilliant, but gives Disney an awful lot of power over the film industry, our psyches, and the overall impact on society that this "family values" company has. I think we are at a point where most everyone has considered how problematic it was that every Disney princess until Jasmine was white. They even whitewashed the story of Pocahontas. They clearly got the message in a few decades though, as Black Panther is the most successful film in the Marvel Universe. It took 100 years from Walt's Jewish hating self, for this company to move in the direction it should have. That is problematic for me. This is a company that claims to corner the market on family values. 

Alright, I know this wasn't much of a review of Endgame. IF you could possibly be a human that did not see this movie, SEE IT! But please watch the first two first. And if you are really smart, you will watch the WHOLE Marvel universe in chronological order, through every franchise.   I did this with the Star Wars trilogies and it CHANGED MY LIFE (yes, I'm a drama queen). 

So of course, I give this film 5 hearts out of 5 hearts and each one of them beats for Tony Stark!  But do not ever forgot the financial, societal, and personal influence that this company has over you, and billions of other people all across the planet. Disney lives in our brains and that's exactly where they want to be. 

💓💓💓💓💓