With that opening paragraph out of the way, I feel that I have officially washed my hands clean and now I can talk openly about whatever I want. But just because I have that freedom, it doesn't mean that I'm going to talk about everything in this movie. It's a bit of a daunting task reviewing this movie even with the freedom to talk about whatever simply because this is a lot of movie. "Infinity War" was already a long movie at 160 minutes and now the Russo Brothers topped themselves by making "Endgame" 181 minutes. Yes, that clocks in at just a hair over three hours. Combine the two movies and you have a complete story that's nearly six hours long. I'm going to be here all day typing this review if I'm covering everything and no way would anyone read that full thing. Even my most devoted readers would get bored after the first 50 paragraphs and scroll down to the end to see my score. So I'm going to simply try to do this justice by giving my complete thoughts in a satisfying way to myself without worrying about touching every detail. And when you do read this and you want to respond to points I have made or bring up any points you feel I missed, don't comment publicly on Facebook or the likes. Contact me in private by whatever means suits you best.
I think it goes without saying that this has been quite the journey leading up to "Avengers: Endgame." A historic journey the likes of which we have never seen before and probably never will see again. A 22-movie arc that culminates with "Endgame" and will have Marvel sitting at $20 billion earned at the worldwide box office by the time this movie finishes its run. Now I do want to quantify something real quick. This is not the end of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. When you make $20 billion in 11 years with the theatrical releases alone, you don't just stop, especially not when you're owned by Disney. And this is not just me speculating. They've already reserved spots on the schedule for two MCU films next year, three in 2021 and three in 2022. They just haven't told us what they are. Plus there's "Spider-Man: Far from Home" in two months from now and a whole bunch of TV shows related to this universe heading to Disney+ starting in November. But this is the end of a chapter. An end of an era. They've been leading up to this Infinity Gauntlet story arc since "Iron Man" in 2008 and now it's complete. It feels like the series finale of this great show that is an end of sorts as well as the final movie for several beloved characters that I'll touch on later in this review.
As such, this was a very emotional film for me. Now I was on a mission for my church in 2008, so I didn't get to see "Iron Man" or "The Incredible Hulk" in theaters, but I caught up as soon as I could when I got home early in 2010 and since "Iron Man 2" I have seen every MCU film in theaters, usually on opening weekend or shortly thereafter. In my brain this isn't that big of an accomplishment. It's two or three movies a year, so it's not that hard to keep up on, even for those who aren't crazy about movies like myself. But going to the latest MCU film is something that I always enjoy and is something that I will continue to do until they stop making them, which might never happen, especially since Disney just barely got the rights to all of the X-Men characters, which on its own opens the doors to a whole lot more possibilities. No, I don't participate in this Marvel vs. DC war. I'll see all the DC movies as well, especially since I mostly grew up on DC and not Marvel. If you make me pick between the two, I'll pick DC. But I simply just like a good superhero movie and Marvel with their cinematic universe has provided us 22 movies that are on various levels of good. I don't fanboy out with every new movie, but I've not yet hated a movie in the MCU. Even the lesser ones have some redeeming qualities.
Because of all this, I felt like "Endgame" was a movie that specifically catered towards me. The phrase "fan service" is used a lot in critiquing films, usually in a negative light, but "Endgame" was jam packed with a whole lot of fan service that was done appropriately. Because the phrase has such a negative connotation to it, I'm going to mostly avoid it and instead say that "Endgame" is a movie that rewarded all of the faithful fans by giving us a healthy dose of pretty much everything we've loved about the MCU with just about ALL of the characters participating in some form or another. So many references. So many callbacks. So many beautiful moments. It's a movie that is best experienced ONLY after seeing ALL 21 previous movies. Yeah, sure, you can still enjoy the movie if you ended up skipping any of the previous movies. But even if you skipped something that you thought was insignificant, like "Captain Marvel" or "Ant-Man and the Wasp," there's going to be moments where the movie won't have the same effect as if you had watched them, especially "Ant-Man and the Wasp" since the Quantum Realm plays a HUGE part in this movie and you actually might kinda be lost if you haven't experienced what they cover in that movie.
Say what? Thanos dead at the beginning of "Endgame"? I didn't see that coming. What's going to happen for the remaining 160 minutes of this movie? Well, we start with the dramatic reveal of five... YEARS later. Interesting. This is the part of the movie that's kinda slow, but it wasn't boring. I was actually fascinated by how each character dealt with the consequences of Thanos' snap being permanent. Or so they thought. Iron Man managed to go live a normal life with Pepper Potts. Thor became an extremely depressed recluse and is now fat Thor with a huge beard. Bruce Banner was able to somehow reconcile with Hulk, combining his two egos into one with Professor Hulk, or whatever we're calling him. Captain Marvel is off taking care of all of the other planets and thus is mostly M.I.A. for this movie. Hawkeye has become a psychopathic warrior of sorts after his whole family got snapped. Captain America and Black Widow have not done much of anything as they can't move on from what happened. And Ant-Man is still stuck in the Quantum Realm for the entire five years. That is until a rat crawls over the machine and accidentally frees him. But here's the catch there. From his perspective, it's only been five hours. Things work differently in the Quantum Realm.
And this is where we get to our ACTUAL plot. And it's one that I kinda predicted. I don't know if you noticed, but earlier I said that I was "mostly" impressed with their marketing effort. In the second trailer, there's probably one money shot that they shouldn't have shown. The Avengers walking through headquarters in the Quantum Realm suits. Because, yeah, if you've seen "Ant-Man and the Wasp," those suits that they're wearing in that trailer shot are the exact same suits they're wearing when they go to the Quantum Realm in "Ant-Man and the Wasp." That's why it's important to watch that movie before "Endgame" because you learn quite a bit about the Quantum Realm. Once it dawned on me that those were the same suits, I figured it meant that the Avengers were going to split up into teams and go to various points in the past to stop Thanos from snapping in the first place. Granted, I didn't expect Thanos to be dead in the first 20 minutes and I wasn't expecting a five year time jump, although Black Widow's different hairstyles in the trailers did suggest a time jump of some sorts, but yeah that shot helped me predict the main plot of this movie because this is exactly what happens. Perhaps it would've been nicer to keep that a surprise by not showing those suits.
But still, even though I kinda saw it coming, this was still a fun plot where us long time fans got rewarded the most because we're traveling back in time to three different MCU films in order to obtain the infinity stones before Thanos does. Those three films are "The Avengers" in 2012 where there's three infinity stones in New York at the time (space stone [the Tesseract], mind stone, time stone), "Thor: The Dark World" in 2013 with the reality stone and "Guardians of the Galaxy" in 2014 with the power stone and soul stone. OK, the soul stone doesn't show up in "Guardians of the Galaxy," but while Nebula and War Machine are dealing with past versions of Thanos, Nebula and Gamora at the beginning of "Guardians of the Galaxy," Hawkeye and Black Widow split off to pay a visit to Red Skull at Vormir. So yeah, three MCU films. And I was beaming as they all split up to go hunt down the six infinity stones in their various movies. It reminded me a lot of "The Flash" on CW when Barry Allen goes back to past seasons. Or, as "Endgame" actually references quite a bit, this was very much like "Back to the Future," specifically the second movie when they go back and visit the first movie and you have two of every character mixed into the plot trying their hardest to avoid their past selves.
While I did enjoy this quite a bit as there were a lot of scenes that just had me beaming as well as several emotional emotions, like with Thor and his mom or Tony Stark chatting with Howard Stark when him and Captain America jump back even further in time when they screw up getting the Tesseract, this time travel idea also presents my major concern in the movie. Their time travel rules confuse me. Granted, time travel is a bit of a tricky subject to begin with. There's a lot of different ways to approach it. You can go the "Prisoner of Azkaban" route where there's only one timeline. If you go back in the past and change things, it's as if they always existed. Harry gets hit in the head with a rock earlier in the book. We learn later that the culprit there was Hermione and himself hiding just outside. That's probably my favorite way to do time travel, but that requires a whole lot of planning ahead. You have to know from the beginning that you're going to implement that. That's why most people choose to do time travel like "Back to the Future" where changing the past can effect your future. Marty starts to disappear because he got his mom to fall in love with him instead of his dad. Or you can be like "The Flash" and create a whole bunch of different timelines.
You see where I'm super confused? The more I think about it, the worse it gets in my brain. Maybe I need to see it again to sort it all out, but maybe that'll just make it worse. I think it's quite possible that they didn't think things through as much as they could've. Granted, they were very self aware as they reference a whole bunch of time travel movies. And perhaps the right mindset is to not think too much about it and just enjoy the tangled web of them revisiting past movies, but sometimes my brain has a hard time doing that. Even if I do, I still have to acknowledge the fact that there is a long list of movies that implemented time travel much more effectively. The rules of time travel for this movie weren't as interesting and the stakes weren't as high because the present isn't effected by changing the past. That loses a little bit of the emotional weight in my mind and we're left with what's essentially popcorn entertainment throughout this whole second act. Not a ton of huge stakes, but a whole lot of fun. And this is where all the references to past films and past moments come flooding in. I was surprised by how many characters they were able to bring back to give at least a cameo in the movie. They even had Natalie Portman make an appearance.
Whatever concerns I had with the second act of the film with either it being simple popcorn entertainment or being confusing with the way they implemented time travel, they all went away when we arrived in the final act of the film where we were rewarded with what is probably the most epic final acts in the history of, well, ever. This is certainly the best finale in the MCU and also probably the best superhero movie finale ever. A 22-movie arc story leads to this one moment and it couldn't have been more satisfying. The feeling here for me was akin to the finale of "Return of the King" where such an epic story builds up to the perfect resolution that leaves the audience in complete awe. I don't even know where to begin, but I suppose I should begin with the major event that happens right before this third act. The death of our first major original six Avenger. Black Widow. We all expected or anticipated this being the final movie of Iron Man and Captain America. But I could've sworn we're past the rumor stages with this Black Widow movie, so I thought for sure she was going to survive the movie. But instead I will be forever haunted by the image of her dead body lying at the bottom of that cliff after she sacrificed herself so that Hawkeye could get the soul stone.
That whole sequence was just devastating. The two of them were walking up to go see Red Skull and immediately I started getting nightmares of "Infinity War" when Thanos shoved Gamora off the cliff. This wasn't going to end well. Part of my brain was hoping that they would somehow trick Red Skull into giving them the soul stone without one of them having to be sacrificed, but I'm glad that didn't happen because this is where it was important to have stakes. Once they received the instruction that you have to sacrifice what you love most in order to get the stone, and once they sat and thought about it for a second, I thought it was absolutely beautiful that both of them arrived to the conclusion that they were going to be the one to be sacrificed. Black Widow had no family outside this team and she was willing to do whatever it takes. This was her sacrifice for the team and she was determined to die for the greater good. But Hawkeye came to the same conclusion because he had gone down such a dark path after his family died that this was his way to redeem himself. Then when they realized that both were determined to be the sacrifice, they fought each other to be the one in what may be one of the most heartbreaking duels. And Black Widow won.
Meanwhile let's fast forward. They all get back from their missions. Iron Man has created a makeshift infinity gauntlet. Professor Hulk snaps, almost dying, but survives. Everything seems to have gone back to normal, but as they are looking outside, Thanos massacres Avengers headquarters. This being past Thanos who has spoiled their plans by arriving in their time period after figuring out their plans thanks to the help of past Nebula when War Machine and present Nebula where getting the power stone from the "Guardians of the Galaxy" world. Initially we have Captain America, Iron Man and Thor fighting Thanos in what is an epic duel on its own, especially when Captain America summons Mjolnir. Loud epic cheers at that moment. All hope seems to be running out because past Thanos, even without the infinity stones, is just too powerful. But then, because of Professor Hulk's snap actually working, everyone shows up. And when I mean everyone, I mean EVERYONE. Well, everyone except those who died of causes not related to the Thanos snap. No Loki. No Vision. No Black Widow. But all the people who got dusted are now undusted and join up with those who are still alive to battle Thanos and his large army in the most epic battle known to superherodom.
And that's it. The battle is won. Thanos and his army all turn to dust. Turns out the reason why Doctor Strange gave the time stone to Thanos in "Infinity War" when Thanos was about to kill Iron Man was because Doctor Strange knew that Iron Man was the one who was going to stop Thanos in the end. In the comics there are a lot of different ways that Thanos gets stopped. But in this incarnation of the story, it only makes sense that the ultimate hero is the man who started it all with "Iron Man" in 2008. Tony Stark. And after one final major applause from the audience, suddenly we're all stunned into silence. Tony isn't strong enough to take a snap like that. It almost killed Professor Hulk earlier in the movie and he's significantly stronger than Tony. Present Thanos at the beginning of the movie was able to be killed so easily because, after snapping once, then using the infinity stones to destroy the infinity stones, he was completely drained of all his power. There's no way that Tony survives. He's sitting there on the ground all fried, unable to talk or move, but still fighting for his life because that's who is. After several goodbyes, Pepper Potts tells him that it's OK. They're going to be OK. It's time for him to rest. So he does. Thus ends the life of Tony Stark.
There's not a dry eye in the theater at this point. There were so many sniffles going on as we moved forward through the extended funeral scene. I don't know if I physically cried. That doesn't happen to me too much. But you better believe that I was overcome with emotion. We may have all known that this was coming. Few people thought that Tony was going to survive this movie. But that still didn't make it any easier when the moment came. And to have him go out in this manner was beautiful. There was no deux ex machina in this movie to stop Thanos. We didn't have Captain Marvel show up and save the day. I mean, she showed up and had her moment, but she wasn't able to beat Thanos. We also didn't have a surprise appearance from Adam Warlock, who was teased at the end credits of "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" and is one of the Thanos killers in the comics. Instead it was Tony Stark making the ultimate sacrifice. And we got to send him off with a beautiful funeral procession. And yes, in case you were wondering, the kid that you didn't recognize at the funeral is the kid from "Iron Man 3." It's just been a few years since 2013, so the actor has gotten a bit older. I'm kinda sad that we didn't get a double funeral to honor Black Widow as well, but I get it. This was Tony's moment.
I'm sorry this review is so long, but there's another farewell in this movie that I have to get to. So bear with me. Or skim ahead. I don't really mind. But I need to get all of this out and this is my one moment to do so. In addition to saying farewell to Black Widow and Iron Man in this movie, this is also the final movie for Captain America. And that's a hard trio to say goodbye to, but I liked how they all had three very different farewell. Black Widow's death was more tragic, but an important sacrifice so that they could get the soul stone. Iron Man died right after becoming the ultimate hero and stopping Thanos. Captain America doesn't die. He survives. But when he goes back in time to return all the infinity stones to the alternate timeline they created, he stays back in time to live out his life with Peggy. My heart just melted when they showed this. Bucky, Falcon and them are a bit confused that he didn't come back when they summoned him, but then they look into the distance and see old Captain America sitting on the bench. With Bucky's stamp of approval, Falcon walks up, accepts the shield from Captain America, thus taking on the mantle as the new Captain America. Then we get to see the flashback of Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter finally getting to dance.
Again, the ending of this movie couldn't have been any more perfect. Yes, the movie drags a bit in the first act and the time travel is all sorts of confusing in the second act. Now that they've got the timeline all sorts of screwed up, I have no idea how they are planning on answering so many questions I have about it all. I guess we'll start by seeing in two months from now if anything is addressed in "Spider-Man: Far from Home" regarding this. But still, despite all of this, I am completely satisfied by the conclusion of this film. The Russo Brothers were able to pull off something special with this finale and I have to give a resounding round of applause to everyone involved. Now there's still plenty of stories to be told. Half of our original six Avengers are still alive. I don't know what the plan is going forward with Professor Hulk and Hawkeye, but Thor looks like he's joining the Guardians and I'm totally down with that. There's also a lot of potential stories that they set up and I'm excited to see where they take it next. Because, again, we're not close to being done with the MCU as a whole. But this specific saga that began with "Iron Man" and concluded with "Endgame" is complete and I am satisfied. So of course I'm going to give "Avengers: Endgame" a 10/10.
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