‘Avengers: Endgame Encore’ turns an ending into an ellipsis

I saw Avengers: Endgame in theaters on Saturday night.

No, I didn’t somehow pull off a time heist of my own and go back to 2019. Marvel Studios released Avengers: Endgame Encore this weekend, putting the Infinity Saga capstone back into theaters with a twist.

Depending on where you see Endgame Encore, the film now ends with up to four bits of additional footage in service of setting up Avengers: Doomsday.

When Marvel first announced that Avengers: Endgame Encore was on the way, I rolled my eyes. The Infinity Saga stood on its own. Endgame brought to a close a 22-movie project that remains unparalleled across pop culture. It would have been one thing to put Endgame back into theaters so that old and new fans would have a chance to watch it again before Doomsday premieres in December.

But making changes to the movie itself just to sew in some connective tissue to Doomsday? That felt creatively dubious to me.

Then an email popped into my inbox from the Airbus IMAX. That’s the massive IMAX screen where I’ve seen movies like Dune: Part Two and The Odyssey. (It’s the biggest IMAX screen in Virginia.) It had just opened up its screenings of Endgame Encore.

While I correctly guessed that the new scenes would leak online, I decided that seeing Avengers: Endgame Encore on this massive IMAX screen would be worth it.

Avengers: Endgame holds up.

It’s weird to feel nostalgia for a movie that came out only seven years ago, but there was something innocent about it.