Did Avengers: Endgame Benefit From Longer Runtime?
Avengers: Endgame is a big movie, and we don't just mean in terms of box office success. In terms [...]
Avengers: Endgame is a big movie, and we don't just mean in terms of box office success. In terms of runtime, the film is the longest of all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films to date with a runtime of just over three hours. That lengthy runtime prompted speculation about whether there would be an intermission to give fans a needed bathroom break and, later, when it was clear there would be no intermission, suggestions and tips about the best time in the action to sneak out and take care of things without missing too much. Now that the movie has been out for just over week, though, we can reflect on that long runtime and ask the question: did Avengers: Endgame benefit from its three hour length?
It's a pretty simple answer: yes, because it needed every minute of those three hours to deliver on the promise of closing a chapter of the MCU as we know it, to resolve the events of Infinity War, and in doing so set the table for Phase 4 and everything after without sacrificing any element of it.
Warning: there will be spoilers for Endgame beyond this point.
Let's start with the delivery of promises. It's been known for quite some time that Avengers: Endgame was meant to be a conclusion of sorts and that, in being an end, it would bring together the various stories told over the course of the previous 21 films and, most specifically, would create some sort of resolution to the events of Captain America: Civil War which saw the Avengers team splintered while also closing the story arcs for some of the franchise's biggest characters. In order to do that, the film had to have the space to explore those themes in the context of Endgame's actual plot. The three hour time allowed the movie to do that in a way that both served the story and connected things organically. For Tony and Steve in particular, the last time fans saw them together, were not on good terms and they don't start Endgame on good terms. It's only through the shared goal of reversing the Snap that they repair their friendship, especially after things go sideways in 2012 when they fail to get the Space Stone. That failure prompts them to improvise together as they've done before, trust in one another restored.
By having a longer run time, the film was able to have a plot that could not only facilitate that, but create additional emotional gravity to the film. Thor going back to Asgard and seeing his mom, Steve seeing Peggy through a window, Tony talking to his father, those things could have been cut from the film in the interest of time and Endgame would have still had a solid heist story that would have fit into a more traditional runtime and still would have been good but it would have been missing a deeper investment. As is, those connecting stories helped make the epic elements of the film even more so. It's hard to imagine the huge battle scene between the original Avengers and Thanos after the Time Heist without knowing in a direct sense what each character had endured to get to that moment along with what it meant to have everyone back.
And all of that gets done with time left for a "happy" ending. Tony literally saves the universe. Clint gets his family back. Thor finds new purpose. Bruce and Hulk are in harmony. Those lost have been restored and Steve? He passes the torch and gets to finally have his dance. Endgame pretty much packed three movies into one and didn't waste a single second. It was a huge gamble, and it paid off spectacularly.
Avengers: Endgame is in theaters now.
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