Last fall, when Chris Evans tweeted that he’d had an “emotional day” wrapping filming on the fourth Avengers film and that playing Captain America…
Last fall, when Chris Evans tweeted that he’d had an “emotional day” wrapping filming on the fourth Avengers film and that playing Captain America “over the past eight years has been an honor,” fans of the Marvel superhero flipped out. Many feared Cap — aka Steve Rogers — would be killed off in Avengers: Endgame, which opened in theaters worldwide this week.
Well — MAJOR SPOILER HERE — fear no more. Captain America doesn’t die. But he does end his run as an Avenger in an exit that’s emotional, bittersweet — and well, just perfect.
And I say that as a huge Captain America fan. He’s my favorite Avenger — and the fact that we’re both from Brooklyn is only part of the reason. It’s because he embodies the ideals — bravery, honesty, loyalty, nobility — that get overlooked when we talk about what makes someone a superhero in movies these days.
So I braced myself for a future in which the very prolific and successful Marvel Cinematic Universe would plod on without him.
But four days after seeing Endgame, I’m genuinely happy with how his story plays out in the Russo brothers’ funny, smart, moving and masterful follow-up to last year’s semi-annoying cliffhanger, Avengers: Infinity War. (Our spoiler-free review calls Endgame an epic “thrill ride” and our spoiler-packed review calls it “so close to being perfect.”)
Sure there’s a lot to unpack in Endgame, but Rogers gets the hero’s ending he deserves, and that’s why I’ve been telling friends to go into the flick dehydrated. You don’t want to skip a single minute of this three-hour, one-minute-long epic for a bathroom break (though my colleagues have figured out three scenes where you can run out if you really need to).
So while I’ll miss Captain America, Endgame does a great job of reminding me why I’m glad to have known him at all. If Tony Stark/Iron Man is the brains, Thor the brawn and Natasha “Black Widow” Romanova the soul of the Avengers team, Cap is the heart, showing us how one good guy can make all the difference. And I’m not talking about superpowers here.
When we first meet Rogers in 2001’s Captain America: The First Avenger, he’s a skinny and asthmatic but earnest Army reject, desperately trying to enlist so he can fight the Nazis during World War II.
