Written by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely
Directed by Anthony & Joe Russo
Steve Rogers: "We lost. All of us. We lost friends. We lost family. We lost a part of ourselves. This is the fight of our lives."
Advanced warning: a week has passed since this movie's release and this review will contain massive spoilers, so if you haven't seen it already, you've been warned.
It has been one year since the events of
Infinity War but for our dispirited team, at least a shorter amount of time had passed since Thanos (Josh Brolin) made the life changing snap of the universe. He was victorious and our gang were utterly defeated. Then there was the moment when Thor (Chris Hemsworth) lost his rag as the remaining gang along with Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) thought they could change everything. Except even in death, nothing changed.
The first half hour of this movie certainly had a sense of hopelessness to it. Sure we saw Carol Danvers rescue Nebula (Karen Gillan) and Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) from space and there might have been a satisfaction in Thanos getting his head taken off but the moment the latter revealed he destroyed the infinity stones was the moment where things looked hopeless for our remaining heroes while an obvious solution was waiting in the wings.
First of all though - we had to have a five year time jump. A jump that involved Tony and Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) living in a cabin with a daughter while Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) lost his own family and became a dangerous vigilante named Ronin. A jump that also included Captain America (Chris Evans) running a men's group while Captain Marvel went off world and Thor got fat and depressed on New Asgard with Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) just waited around doing nothing of consequence.
It's a good job then that Ant Man (Paul Rudd) reached out to the gang in order to propose the obvious solution of time travel to fix the Thanos problem and while it took Tony a bit to get on board with the idea, the rest of the movie then became a delightful call back to past movies as the gang made it their mission to fix the mess that Thanos made on the world.
I'll admit it was nice to re-examine the likes of
The Avengers, Thor: The Dark World, Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 1 and so on as each of our gang members went back in time in order to nab the time stones. Not only did it give us a few cameos from actors who clearly didn't film anything for this movie in particular but it was also a way of showing audiences how far certain characters have come throughout the course of the MCU as Nebula's own delving into her former time line meant that Thanos of the past was able to try and stop the Avengers from succeeding in their plan to change his future.
Now this was always going to be a movie that would not only bring back those who were snapped out of existence but also keep other characters dead (Loki for example) while adding a few more sacrifices into the mix as well. I'm not surprised though that the sacrifices in question happened to be some original members, so let's focus on them as this is really their movie with everyone else just playing a supporting role.
After years of struggles - the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) finally has the perfect control of his alter ego, even to the point where he's happy to take selfies with admiring kids and find shirts that fit him as well, so he fared the best from this movie. Hawkeye became a far darker character before eventually getting his own family back while Thor handed his kingdom to the most trustworthy person he could find before setting off with the Guardians so his time in the MCU isn't quite as over as I thought it was going to be. I loved Thor being paired with those characters in the previous movie, so this is a development I am very pleased with.
Of course the harder sacrifices came with two major deaths. First of all, there was Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) sacrificing herself so they could get the soul stone. I saw this one coming a mile and I'll admit that it stuck a little. I know the character has a prequel movie in the works but I kind of wished they had picked another character to have killed off over Black Widow for this particular moment.
As for Tony Stark though - the very man whose solo movie kick started this entire franchise. His sacrifice was devastating too but it was effectively handled and out of all the character who would be responsible for Thanos's downfall at the end of this movie, it made sense that Tony would be the one to take him out. The moment felt earned and the funeral scene which boasted far too many cameos to boot highlighted the poignancy of it all.
Then there was Captain America himself. Jokes about his ass aside (am I surprised that Scott is a fan of it? Nope!), I had no real issue with him deciding to live a life with Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) or that Falcon (Anthony Mackie) got to take on the mantle with Bucky (Sebastian Stan) as his partner in crime. I do get why this might not have gone down well with certain fanbases but for me, aside from the potential time issue, it wasn't too much of a big deal.
Last but not least - I have to comment on the big battle scene. It was pretty epic to see so many characters going up against Thanos and his army and while the girl power moment with nearly all the female characters banding together did seem a little trite (but also a clear reminder that the MCU has had plenty of amazing female characters prior to 2019), there was a satisfaction in finally having Thanos and his army defeated once and for all.
This is a movie that had a running time of three hours, so I certainly ate light before watching it. There were a few moments that could've been trimmed (Thor's depression being played for laughs, Scott's time travelling testing antics) but funnily enough, it didn't drag and it easily could've done so. For the most part it managed to utilise the three hours it had rather well.
- The movie gave us a gay character played by Joe Russo at Steve's support group. The scene didn't bother me but after 22 movies, the criticism for it seemed justified to me. Fortunately we are getting a gay lead in
The Eternals though.
- All the obvious time travel movies managed to get a reference into this one along with cinematic flop,
A Wrinkle In Time.
- Characters such as Loki, Wanda, Vision, Falcon and Winter soldier will be getting their own shows on Disney+ within the next year, so even if they're not in future movies, we'll be seeing more of them in other mediums.
- With the amount of cameos in this movie, the most surprising one was the inclusion of Harley Keener (Ty Simpkins) from
Iron Man 3. Katherine Langford who was reported to be appearing in this movie had her scenes cut.
- This movie also gave us the final cameo appearance from Stan Lee as well.
- Chronology: 2018 and 2023 as well as various trips into the past.
Avengers : Endgame might not be the final movie from Phase 3 (that honour will fall to
Spider-Man: Far From Home apparently) but there's no denying this felt very much like the end of an 11 year era for the MCU. The majority of the characters were served well, most of the time wasn't wasted, Thanos got a good ending as the franchise's strongest antagonist and there were some hints for the next phase. I won't say this is my favourite superhero movie of all time, but it's undeniably one of the most important movies of all time from the genre it's a part of and it's a massive accomplishment to see onscreen.
Rating: 9 out of 10
